Funeral Blues
by neela
Summary: It was supposed to be a break, something to recharge their batteries after two months of difficult cases, rising tension and outright fighting... Then the wave struck and everything changed. [Written several years ago in response to the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, now finished. Inspired by real events and people, but not a true story. Tessa/Steve.]
1. Chapter 1

Warning: Possible distressing content in some later chapters related to a natural disaster aftermath and hospitalization. Mostly moderate descriptions and between-the-lines imagery; some graphic images.

* * *

 _To those whose lives were lost in the tsunami on Boxing Day 2004, and those who were left behind._

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,  
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,  
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;  
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

\- Excerpt from "Funeral Blues" by W. H. Auden (1938)

* * *

 **Khao Lak  
Phang Nga, Thailand**  
 _December 23rd_

Nothing could ever sufficiently describe the sense of tranquillity that befell the small bungalow sitting by the white beach, the second in a row of eight similar two-storey houses. Palm trees cast their lazy morning shades across the bungalow, the sun early up and just wandering at snail's pace towards the peak of heat around noon. A gentle wind ruffled the leaves, just a hint of coolness to its caress, and wound through the crooks and corners of the bungalows.

Detective Senior Constable Tessa Vance sighed contently and reached up to adjust the silly, but beneficial, straw hat on her head, tipping it slightly forward to let the wind graze her warm neck and relieve the hotness on her face. Her blonde curls had been pulled into a short ponytail, the rest trapped in a hairband underneath the hat.

This was simply heaven. Lounging partially in the shifting shades on a sun lounger, spread out limply with only a beach towel between her flushed skin and the white plastic, sunglasses on and simply doing nothing; she had never imagined herself to be one to enjoy it. Perhaps Thorne and Tootsie had been right: the past few months had really done a toll on her.

It was not often Tessa found herself pinned down somewhere for a long period of time, and frankly, she would most likely get up soon and do something else, like take on the tantalising white waves crashing against the sand. But once settled down and letting her mind wander freely, Tessa had to admit it was relaxing. Who knew her partner had been correct all these years?

"Thinking about Steve again, are you?" An amused and mischievous voice broke Tessa out of her spell, and she popped an eye open behind the sunglasses to look across at her friend. "You've got that face, you know. It's easy to see, even with the entire hubbub on."

"I don't know what you're talking about," said Tessa evenly and dipped her head in the opposite direction, only then realising she stoked the fire with her action. Her cheeks grew hotter in the summer heat.

"Don't insult my intelligence, Tessa. I've known you since forever."

"I hardly see eight years as being 'forever', Bridge," Tessa pointed out resignedly.

Bridget Murphy scoffed, pushing her own red, shaded designer sunglasses up her nose. Diamonds sparkled along the edges, competing with the million-dollar grin underneath the pert nose.

"Says she who claimed 'forever' was the first word students learned at the Academy," retorted Bridget, flipping away the dark brown curls spilling across her tanned shoulders. The hair complemented the red-striped bikini perfectly. No surprise there. "Just admit it, Tessa, you were thinking about him. Not that I blame you, mind you. I'd have jumped him myself if his eyes hadn't been so keenly on you."

Tessa blushed, ducking her head again and feeling a bout of irritation sweep over her. "Don't say that, Bridge," she bit out. "You know it isn't true. We're just friends. Partners."

 _And we've been yelling at each other for two months._

"So you've said for the past three years, girl. It's getting old. If I hadn't seen you two together I wouldn't have said anything. Hey. . ." Bridget leaned over and put her hand lightly upon Tessa's. She pulled her sunglasses down with her other hand and regarded her with gentle green eyes. "I'm sorry, but I just gotta speak my mind. I know you feel _something_ for him, otherwise you wouldn't have been so bothered about what's happened the past few months. And I know you can't do anything about it if you wanna stay partners, but that doesn't mean you have to hide everything. Especially not from yourself. I can assure you, _that's_ not healthy."

Apart from the waves crashing against the beach and the loud squeals from happy children caught in them, the air went silent as Tessa zipped her lips shut in fear of overstepping herself. Bridget was too good of a friend to lose just because her nerves were standing on end from months of endless obstacles, starting around the time of the art gallery murder of Mr Osbourne. She'd already tried her team's patience greatly, which was why she'd agreed—after some extensive persuasion—to take this spur-of-the-moment holiday trip.

 _For all their sakes,_ Tessa's mind added subtly. _But maybe especially his…_

"Since when did you become a relationship expert?" Tessa raised an eyebrow enquiringly, but relaxed to let Bridget know she wasn't going to blow up in her face again. "Last I checked things weren't going so well with a certain Mr Hobwells." She grinned, the familiar tease lightening the atmosphere.

"Sweet Jesus, why did I ever date a man named 'Hobwells' for a last name?" Bridget groaned, part dramatically, part in honest.

"I guess it didn't help his first name was Rochard," Tessa supplied helpfully, although her intention was sorely to draw the embarrassment out further. She knew, with some introspection, that of the two of them, Bridget handled ridicule on her own behalf much better than she did.

"I thought it was a misspelling, but he said from the first moment that it was anything but. He didn't even suspect his parents hated him." Bridget frowned mockingly, smiling too as she retracted her hand and leaned back on the lounger.

"So what happened?" asked Tessa, interested. They hadn't been able to speak much in the past month, both caught up in work, so she was sorely out of the recent gossip.

"I bailed out, of course!" Bridget exclaimed obviously. "Would be crazy of me not to. The man was bloody out of his mind. Did you know he had this stupid notion of how women were supposed to act out on the town? I couldn't take him anywhere." Bridget sighed, "Just as well. Don't think he'd appreciate any of my friends anyway. Everyone is work-related, of course. Doubt any of them would be able to discuss Descartes's mechanical philosophy on his level anyway."

"And which level is that?"

"Stuck-up your own arse?" Bridget tried bravely. Tessa laughed.

"I think I know someone like that," she mused, thinking vaguely of a pertinent and eccentric forensic expert, but it could just as well be someone she'd known from university. Or now that she thought about it, she _had_ met a man in Paris who loved philosophy and everything about it. Some people were just weird like that.

"No more guy talk, all right?" Bridget finally declared, waving her arms dramatically as she sat up. "We've filled today's quota. Now we're going to hit the tequilas and pool boys. After a swim, of course. The heat is killing me."

Tessa found no objection to that and quickly took off both hat and sunglasses, shielding her eyes with her hand until they adjusted to the sharp light. Bridget was already half-way across the beach when she caught up with her, feeling only slightly awkward in her own moss green bikini, although her self-esteem had risen considerably since their arrival here. Go figure that she would feel out of sorts being half-naked among strangers when mostly she covered up in drab suits that only did so much for her femininity.

The water was cold, but Tessa dived head-first into the waves once far enough out. It was wonderful. After an hour or so in the heat by the bungalow—even though it was far from noon—she felt like she'd been starting to swelter.

Being here in this holiday paradise had reminded Tessa of her childhood days, when her father had sometimes been able to take her to the beach. He had taught her to swim, she remembered. She'd actually been scared of the water, because she'd always been scared of enclosed spaces, but once she learned how to move through it, she swam as often as she could. Of course, this had been before her father really gave in to the demands of Homicide, after which she and her mother had to travel to the beach by themselves.

Pushing the uncomfortable thoughts away from her mind, Tessa took a deep breath and disappeared into the blue-green ocean again.

* * *

 **Sydney  
** **New South Wales, Australia  
** _The Same Day_

Detective Senior Constable Steve Hayden never wanted to answer the phone again. It would always be the same. 'Comment this, comment that, give us some juicy inside information so we can up the other newspapers and television stations.' The workings of the fourth estate would forever be a mystery to him, but it was a mystery, he reckoned, he was well off without.

The cup of coffee that had been sitting on his desk all day was picked up and spit out almost nearly as quickly. Yikes! Who had killed the cat and stuffed it in his coffee?

Standing up, he grumbled towards the nearest sink and spilled the contents out before trudging over to the coffee machine. Further irritation was added to his building temper when he saw some jerk had forgotten to clean up after the last round and not put on a new pot of coffee. Setting the cup aside, he set to work and nearly broke the precarious plastic lid when putting it on with too much force.

"Easy, Steve! Don't kill the machine just because it doesn't agree with you!" Constable Dee Suzeraine popped up beside him, her short reddish hair catching a bit of sunshine and clashing with his eyes. He mumbled something beneath his breath. "Hey, step aside and let a professional take care of it, all right?"

Steve left the task gladly, flinging the lid onto the tabletop with a clatter before finding his way back to his desk. He didn't notice the wide eyes following him before returning to the task he'd left for her. He sat down heavily and ran a hand through his hair, feeling the weight of the past few months pulling him slowly down the drain.

"So what's bugging you, mate? You've been kinda tense lately," said Dee friendly, but warily, as she returned from the machine. Steve could hear it trickling in the background and sighed. He felt shame wash over him instantly and tried to unclench his fists; Dee didn't deserve his frustration. She hadn't done anything wrong.

Even so, he'd never had the habit of sharing his deepest thoughts with her. That'd been Tessa's forte and, well…they weren't exactly talking these days. More like yelling.

Except now she was off for the holidays, leaving him behind. It should've made things better, but it hadn't. The coffee machine could attest to that.

"I'm just tired of this case," Steve said evenly, trying to keep his underlying frustration in check as he met Dee's worried eyes. "If I never have to answer one damn phone call again…"

The phone rang. God had a funny sense of humour.

Steve cursed and picked it up, his words spoken from behind gritted teeth. "Hayden, Homicide." His jaw clenched further as he recognised one of the reporters that'd already called him four times in the past few hours. "I told you 'no comment'. That hasn't changed. _Goodbye_."

With more force than necessary, he slammed the receiver down. Dee's eyes were wide as they stared at him.

" _What_?" Steve snapped, his temper rising more quickly as his hands clenched into fists again. "Don't you have somewhere to be, Dee?"

She startled at that like a deer caught in the headlights, but Steve didn't wait to see her go. Fuming, he sat up straighter and picked up a random folder from the piles lying around the cluttered desk, his eyes kept solidly on the words floating in front of him. He knew that if he looked up, he'd see Dee's hurt features and frankly, he'd had enough for the day.

Nevertheless, her silent retreat made the shame churn uncomfortably in his stomach again, especially as the smell of fresh coffee drifted through the air. Cursing beneath his breath, Steve leaned back as far as the chair would allow and ran a hand through his thick, dark hair.

Shit. He'd thought last month had been bad with the whole art gallery murder, but this one was turning out to be the worst month of the year. Ever since that up-and-coming politician had been found dead in a brothel involving drugs and illegal immigration, things had been haywire at Central, going in every direction at once but all leading straight to someplace hot and hellish. It'd made very many people tense and snappish, although none had compared to how his partner had ended up before Thorne had sent her on early holiday leave.

The blue eyes that'd been wide and reddish from lack of sleep had taunted Steve's conscience at night as he knew he hadn't made it any easier on her. Probably made it ten times worse. However, he hadn't realised that until Tessa had left with her friend Bridget Murphy, which was hindsight and that was as everyone knew twenty-twenty.

Even so, as Steve watched the empty desk across from his, he regretted the times he'd let his own emotions run with him and challenged her. Without her throwing her wild ideas at him, he felt sort of lost. Her replacement had been quite capable, and they _had_ managed to find and arrest the killer, but Steve had been unable to fully enjoy the glory as most of it belonged to his usual partner…as always.

He half wished he hadn't helped persuading her to take the early leave Thorne had suggested, but he knew his wishes were purely of selfish reasons, as had the initial persuasion.

Then again, him being unable to celebrate could also be due to the fact he was utterly exhausted and just wanted to sleep for a week.

 _Bet you're looking forward to those two weeks Thorne promised, huh?_

Although it'd actually been their turn to work through Christmas this year and be on call until after New Year's Eve, with the media circus and all the hounding they'd gone through in the past month concerning demonstrations and anonymous attacks on their properties, Thorne had managed to arrange for them to take two weeks off instead and catch up with it next year. As Tessa had been shipped out early just before the holidays, Steve had been left with the tedious work of typing up reports and the like along with his temporary partner, who had now mysteriously disappeared.

Pushing away from the desk, Steve stood and let his mind try to find some peace from all the turmoil of thoughts inside. He went to the coffee machine and poured himself a cup, another pang of shame for how he'd treated Dee earlier clenching his stomach, but it was pushed away as he downed the addictive liquid.

Just as he poured a second cup, Inspector Malcolm Thorne stepped around the corner.

"Steve," he greeted, to which Steve inclined his head. He could see the lines on his boss's face and knew that however much the media had bothered him, Thorne had probably been the worse one off by ten times more. Today the grey-haired, broad-shouldered man looked as his voice hinted: tired and tense. "How's the report going?"

"It'll be done by the end of the day," Steve promised, sipping his second cup much slower than the first.

"And where's Detective Myers?"

"Down in Forensics. He's checking up on something." Steve wasn't really sure about that, but he wasn't about to rat on his partner just because he decided to duck out of office for a while. Everyone needed a break occasionally, especially if they were partnered up with a mean old grump.

Thorne merely raised an eyebrow. "Must be important," he commented non-comittally. "Well, I want that report on my desk today. You're off from tomorrow out. I don't want to see you here until the new year."

"Will do, sir," said Steve, feeling the 'sir' was warranted by the narrowed eyes behind the horn-rimmed glasses.

With a slightly curt nod, Thorne turned on his heel and retraced his steps, disappearing around the corner into his holiest chamber: the office. Steve let out a brief breath before doing the same, finding his worn office chair tiredly. He stared at the blank computer screen in front of him, the previous anger gone as if someone had popped the balloon.

 _Just a few paragraphs more_ , his mind prompted, although Steve knew from experience how difficult just those paragraphs were to write. _Mind on the job, Stevie; you can sleep when you're done. And then it's straight home for Christmas. Just like that song, only without the snow._


	2. Chapter 2

**The Hayden Farm**  
 **New South Wales, Australia**  
 _Christmas Day_

"Uncle Steeeve!"

Steve only just had the time to register what was going on before his bed was assaulted by two very lively little girls. The springs squeaked and his body shifted between dipping and rising on the mattress as his nieces had decided this morning was the day they all wanted to jump on Uncle Steve's bed, _and_ Uncle Steve.

Though wide-awake now, Steve feigned sleep and snored loudly, causing the girls to giggle in that shrill tone only children managed.

"Uncle Steve, you can't sleep now!" moaned one of them. The oldest, Steve surmised. "It's Christmas!"

As if the news was merely as trivial as any other morning, Steve continued to snore, a smile creeping unto his face.

"That's not gonna work, Gabby, you've got to tickle him," another voice spoke up, this decisively _not_ any of his nieces.

Steve barely had time to growl in annoyance at the betrayal before nimble fingers had found his stomach above the blankets. This made him react, and he made a low growl before starting his counter-attack, quickly shifting so he captured both his nieces in his arms.

"Nooo!" Gabby cried gleefully, giggling when he pretended to gobble her up, joined by her little sister, Paula. A more mature laughter could be heard above the shrill giggling and Steve soon let the girls loose to look up at his own little sister.

Melissa Dawkins was younger than him by five years, making her about Tessa's age, with dark hair and a smile that mirrored his own dimples. Energetic and optimistic, she often reminded him of his partner, but the merciless teasing nature could not be said to be anything but a Hayden trademark.

"I see your ways to wake me up have evolved." Steve tried to paste a mock affronted look upon his face but failed miserably as Paula tried to tickle him again. "To use your own kids – you should be ashamed."

"Means to an end," Melissa retorted grinningly. "You've always been a lazy bum in the mornings."

"Uncle Steve," Gabby piped up and Steve let both his nieces off the hook, sitting up straighter as he met their solemn expressions. "Grandma said we couldn't open the presents without you!" It was clear this was a potential disaster both girls took very seriously and Steve had to bite his tongue not to laugh at them.

"Ah, the master mind behind this horrendous scheme," Steve smirked and quirked an eyebrow at his sister. He then looked at Gabby and Paula's hopeful faces.

 _Adorable._

Gabby, soon starting pre-school, and Paula, only three; both of them had their parents' looks and the Hayden smile. How could he ever say no to them?

"All right, I'm up. You go down and tell your grandma that her favourite son is on his way."

"Her only son," Melissa mumbled from the doorway, ducking to avoid the pillow Steve threw at her, before following her daughters down the hall and to the ground floor living room with an impish grin.

* * *

 **Khao Lak**  
 **Phang Nga, Thailand**  
 _The Same Day_

"So how do you reckon people are doing back home?" Bridget sipped the colourful umbrella drink through a pink straw, smacking her lips in delight. "Called your mum yet?"

"No, not yet," Tessa replied, feeling the familiar tug at her navel, but ignoring it. Her own green drink was going a bit slower than her friend; she'd never been quite an avid drinker. "She and Guy are probably off to Minnie's today."

"That's your sister, right?"

"Step-sister, I guess you can call her," Tessa smirked. "Guy's only daughter and the apple of his eye. I swear the times we've met he's been all 'Minnie this and Minnie that'. She's a very accomplished girl."

"Settled down? Kids, hubbie, dog?" Bridget gave her a knowing smirk. Tessa grimaced, but nodded. "That's it, you know. There's nothing parents hate more than their children never settling down. So once they do, they praise them into the skies. Mum got to the grandchildren issue the other day and when she'll get them from me. As if my brother's kids aren't enough for her!"

Tessa chuckled. "I don't think they'll ever tire of grandkids either." A frown crept upon her features and she felt a small dip in her stomach. "Have you ever thought about it? Settling down, I mean? Having kids?"

The smile on Bridget's face wavered until she too looked pensive. A lazy finger trailed the edge of the straw, but it seemed to be an unconscious gesture.

"Yeah, I suppose. I mean, we're hitting the big three-oh next year," said Bridget with a scowl, disgusted with the idea. Tessa agreed wholeheartedly. "So who doesn't get a little caught up in that thought? Statistics, science – they're all against us the older we get. But...it's hard, you know? Doing what we do..."

She drifted off, leaving no doubt of what she was talking about. Police work. Detectives. Although it was already hard when in uniform, when you were on call it was practically impossible. How often hadn't that fact come up and bit them in the arse? Work was a relationship killer, especially to them. Even though legislation had tried to make things better for officers in the past few years with working hours and the like, it was no better when personal motivation drove them on beyond shifts. And those without motivation was a rarity in their profession. They owed it to the victims.

That they were women in such a profession also put a hinder to any family planning. The men got it easy. Just a quick roll in the hay and he could get off to work while his spouse looked after kids and home.

A sudden thought of her partner popped up. Steve had married once and tried to settle down, but then he got divorced. Her parents had struggled too; her mother had revealed as much in the later years. So maybe it was tough on the men as well?

"It's not easy," Tessa agreed solemnly, catching up to the conversation. After three years in Homicide she'd started to realise why her father had been so devoted, and so unavailable in her childhood and youth.

"The problem is finding someone who can put up with it, with us. There's not much we can do about work," said Bridget. "And I've already tried dating a colleague once, and while it might've worked out, we were incompatible in every other way. I guess you and me are just destined to have bad luck in love."

"Yeah," Tessa mumbled, falling silent as thoughts rumbled around inside her mind. "You know, I always pictured myself married sometime. Or at least with a steady companion. Even with Dad's absence, I still had some belief that it couldn't be that hard, not when people truly love each other."

Bridget gave her a sad smile, out of place in these wonderful surroundings. "I like that thought. We gotta have hope, right?"

Tessa only rolled her eyes, smirking slightly. "Well, that was then, years ago. Now I'm more realistic. After all we've seen...well, sometimes it's hard to think that people can still love each other. At least in that way."

"Three years in Central Homicide and you're getting cynical, Tessa? What happened to you?" Bridget tried to joke, but her voice nevertheless held a serious tone. "Was it Steve?"

"What? No!" protested Tessa. "No, no, it wasn't him. It was..."

But for whatever reason, Tessa couldn't find an alternative, and she fell to an incriminating silence. Bridget reached out and patted her hand comfortingly.

Tessa sighed, giving in. "It's just… I feel like something's changed. Ever since that art gallery murder…" Taking a deep breath, she let it out gently and felt her voice tremble slightly. "Sometimes, I just wish we weren't partners."

 _Then I wouldn't have to be reminded of just how different we are…and how much he seems to hate me these days._

Bridget could only offer a smile in understanding, but Tessa didn't mind. At least she wasn't alone.

* * *

 **The Hayden Farm**  
 **New South Wales, Australia  
** _The Same Day_

It was a bright sunny day and as it wore on, the heat rose to considerable levels, leaving Steve hot and sticky. Many years ago it wouldn't have bothered him as much, but for the past fifteen years he'd been living on the south-eastern coast and he'd become accustomed to the climate there. It'd take a while to get acclimatised to the weather up north again.

Sneaking into the house from his visit to the stables, Steve changed to swimwear underneath his shorts and T-shirt and then set off for a creek not far from the farm, across the green-yellow paddocks that brought back memories of a happy, carefree childhood.

He'd always regretted moving to the big smoke, away from all this: the hills, the creeks, the paddocks, the endless blue sky and the people he loved. This had been his world and then he'd gone away to pursue an old dream…and old flames.

Diana had made the last push to get him south and then spent a few years with him before deciding it wasn't the life she'd wanted after all. By then Steve had been too deep into his work, too devoted, to go back, so he'd stayed behind while his ex-wife moved back to their childhood town. He didn't know what had become of her, but Steve wasn't the guy to chase lost causes. And the past was something he disliked bringing up again.

Passing a clutter of trees, Steve found the worn track leading down to the creek, letting his mind wander off to more pleasing memories of how he and his sisters had used to go down here on hot days. One of them had always started up a fight that had resulted in getting thrown into the water, and Steve had been ashamed many times of having so strong sisters. They'd always joined forces against him.

Grinning, Steve relished the singing cockatoos and the flow of water reaching his ears. The creek came into view and he stripped quickly, hanging his clothes over a branch before wading into the cool water. Once it was waist-height, he dove in head-first.

 _ **This**_ _is heaven,_ his mind mused later as he broke surface after a few rounds up and down the stream. Steve floated on his back, staring up at the vast blue sky above him, recalling how many different shapes and sizes of clouds he'd seen through the years.

It was simply impossible to see and enjoy something like this in Sydney. The solitude, the tranquillity... It was easier to get lonely in a city chock-a-block full of people than in a creek surrounded by landscape not inhabited by man for miles.

The difference had always struck Steve with a gut-wrenching reality of what he'd given up, but these annual visits to home could sometimes soften the loneliness for some time. And as it were, the stress and resentment of the past few months had already bled out during the first few days since he'd returned home.

It was a cathartic sensation. He hadn't felt this relaxed, this content, in what felt like forever… If only for a few weeks, maybe he could finally forget his work – the gruesome and the bizarre killings, and the jealousy, greed and hate that caused people to commit those heinous crimes…and the media that wanted to capture it all for posterity.

Steve had always figured that things would go really bad once or twice in his line of work, especially with society being what it was and media getting more and more nosy and personal. As Tessa had once claimed: "Society's in the wondrous phase of puberty – it's only just discovering all the new things after the strict upbringing: sex, drugs and rock'n'roll." They'd certainly seen a lot more of those news reported in the media, which was probably why the journalists had wanted to sink their teeth into their latest murder case. It'd been a cesspool of all things scandalous and controversial.

Chuckling, Steve recalled a memory of how they'd hounded Tootsie about her past after learning she'd been a wild card during medical school. None of them had managed to get anything out of her, although they'd all tried. He'd been no angel either, as the nuns had told him often enough. It made him wonder, however, if Tessa had been as wild in school.

 _Nah, she was probably too worried about grades and all that,_ his mind countered. Girls were more often like that, Steve knew. But he made a mental note to wheedle it out of her sometime. Preferably when she was a bit flustered and off-guard.

She was cute that way.

The sun was still strong and Steve ducked underneath the water to cool his heated face, ending up doing several more laps across the creek before getting out.

It was probably closing in on feeding time soon, and he'd promised his brother-in-law to lend a hand. Not that it took that much persuasion, even if he was out of practice. Steve enjoyed being back too much to act like a city boy.

He was home and some parts of the past eight weeks already felt like a distant memory. After all those shouting matches, all that anger, all that hurt…he needed that.

* * *

 **Khao Lak  
Phang Nga, Thailand  
** _The Same Day_

Tessa crept out of bed and stepped up to the window where the nearly transparent curtains fluttered in a soft breeze. The window was suitably turned towards the sea, to the west, exposing the vast horizon out there tucked between trees, islands and an impossibly big sky.

The dark of night had fallen over the bungalow, though music from some of the popular bars could still be heard far away, and the lamps along the beach footpath were still turned on. Yet it all vanished from her notice as Tessa stared out at the black sky and stars mirrored in the calm sea. A few grey clouds passed the moon, merely wisps of dust rather than thick cotton-like shapes.

It was beautiful.

Tessa had always been late to bed, even as a little girl. There was simply too much going on in her head at the time and her body was always prickling with energy; there was no way she nodded off easily. It'd driven her mother crazy, but it'd been one of the things she'd shared with her father. He would always spend the nights working after the rest of them had gone to bed, and sometimes Tessa would creep up just to watch him. Occasionally she was caught, and had to suffer being ordered back to bed, but she'd always felt too excited by the situation to sleep right away.

In later years, Tessa suspected other factors played their part in her insomnia, among them being those nights spent wondering where her father was when he'd been kidnapped, and later, after he'd been found dead, those nights spent mourning his passing. Nightmares had made her hate the nights as well. All those skeletons coming out when her mind was unguarded... It was nothing short of disturbing.

Tonight, however, it wasn't old ghosts that kept Tessa up. Partly the beautiful picture painted outside her window, and partly a nagging unease in the pit of her stomach. She had no explanation for it and it therefore bugged her. Usually she could blame work, but here in this holiday paradise, she couldn't exactly blame it on the sunny days on the beach, or the work she'd left behind. The case had been closed, the killer caught: Tootsie had sent her a text message a few days ago to inform her.

She had a sudden, uncomfortable urge to call Steve, but quelled it as soon as the thought popped up. God knows she disrupted his sleep enough as it were; this wasn't a big enough matter with which to bother him. Not to mention he was thousands of miles away _and_ they hadn't spoken since she'd gone on leave. She wasn't even sure he wanted to speak with her yet; all she'd dared to do was leave a message on his voicemail about where she'd ended up going.

Tessa hugged her warm arms, feeling the heat from a day spent in the sun, and was tempted to turn on the A/C in her room. She'd been blessed with a western window and therefore had little sun in the morning, but in return the sun heated up her room before it disappeared beneath the horizon. At times it was tolerable, but tonight it got to her.

Maybe that was why she felt so uneasy. Because of the warmth. Yes, that was a reasonable explanation. Heat did things to people, like making them restless and hot. Tessa was both.

Feeling suddenly very thirsty, Tessa went to a small fridge in a corner and found a bottle of water inside. She took several large gulps before pausing, breathing heavily as if she'd run a mile. It soothed her insides.

Maybe she should take a cold shower as well. That wasn't such a bad idea. Bridget had always been a heavy sleeper anyway and thus wouldn't be bothered. She would sleep in tomorrow as usual while Tessa went for her morning run. Yes, a shower sounded very tempting.

Tessa left the open window behind to find some clean underwear.


	3. Chapter 3

**The Hayden Farm  
** **New South Wales, Australia  
** _Boxing Day_

Steve slept in, relishing the feeling of being cooped up in bed and not having to drag his arse out to gruesome sights that haunted his nights. The sensation was rare and therefore greatly appreciated. His eyes fluttered closed as he listened to the already wide-awake world outside his open window.

The girls were laughing somewhere, probably playing a game of theirs, running around and jumping, generally worrying or bugging their mother, as Melissa called it. They were such lovely girls. Steve was sorry that he only saw them once a year. His New Year vows always involved having more contact with his family, but he constantly wound up with more guilt than action.

 _This year will be different_. _Although I say that every year, somehow it will be different. It has to._

It was as if events had gradually been working towards the end of this year and the fresh start of another, like the darkest night before the brilliant dawn. Steve had never been so tired, so relieved for two weeks' leave from a job that only brought him the sense of justice, never real happiness. Case after case, never a moment's rest, and those horrible arguments with Tessa – he felt like there could only be something good coming with the new year. If it didn't... well, last night he'd thought of how it would be to quit or transfer to a different unit.

As usual, the thought had lingered only a short while before being shed nearly as quickly as it'd appeared.

He couldn't leave. Not yet, at least. Long ago, in the dark of night, he'd promised himself a career. If he couldn't have anything else, at least he'd have that. And Steve Hayden was not one to go back on his promises. He saw his challenges through until he got a result. This thought of leaving Homicide behind, leaving the force behind, his partner...it was just another challenge to be dealt with.

Steve opened his eyes as Paula – or was it Gabby? – squealed shrilly right beneath his window, shouting something indiscernible to the other before loudly running off and disappearing into the busy morning.

 _Lovely girls, but sometimes a bit of a handful._

Steve remembered how his brother-in-law had only explained that they were at 'that age'. He'd nodded as if he understood, but truth was he wasn't that good with kids.

Diana had spoken about having kids, early on in their marriage. As a newlywed and devoted husband, Steve hadn't been totally opposed to the idea, but he'd reasoned that it'd be better to wait until they were better off. At that time he'd just been starting uniform and they were renting an old apartment. There hadn't been room for kids right then. Diana had agreed, but Steve had always felt her disappointment lurking behind her wondrous blue eyes.

Flashes of forgotten laughs and brilliant sky-blue irises reflecting his image back at him appeared behind Steve's closed eyelids and his heart skipped a beat. He forced his eyes open again and stared up at the blank ceiling where rays of sun stretched from wall to wall.

 _Damn it._ Why wouldn't she leave him alone? Wherever he went, whatever he did, she was there at the back of his mind. It'd been so many years. Diana was part of his past and he shouldn't feel the ache inside his chest anymore. Even last night when Melissa had been interrogating him on his love prospects, that damned loving face had popped up. Given the topic, having those eyes and that face stare at him from behind had made him feel hollow.

Hollow and guilty.

A phone rang, jolting him out of his thoughts. It seemed like he didn't have to think about his 'challenge' now; it could always wait. In fact, he would prefer it. Things were complicated enough as it were.

Steve rolled over and picked up his mobile phone from the nightstand, looking at the caller ID before pressing the answer button.

"Hello Toots," Steve greeted half-heartedly, trying to push the gloominess away. It was a wonderful morning, full of promises and half-forgotten dreams; he shouldn't destroy that. "What's up?"

" _Steve... Are you watching the telly? Have you seen it?"_

Steve frowned and propped himself up on one elbow. Tootsie sounded worried, flustered, even a bit thick-voiced, as if she was swallowing an emotional lump. It didn't bode well.

"What's happened?" His voice low, he felt a familiar sense of calm settle over him, and he flung the covers off him and got out of bed in one smooth motion.

" _It's…it's just, I can't believe it,"_ mumbled Tootsie at the other end of the line. _"I don't even... Steve, you have to turn on the telly. I—you have to—oh, I just want you to tell me it isn't true!"_

"I'm on my way," replied Steve gruffly, supporting the phone on his bare shoulder as he pulled on a pair of shorts. The T-shirt was grabbed in his spare hand and fisted as he left the bedroom and quickly found the way downstairs.

There were no one else inside the house. It was quiet, the only sounds coming from the laughing children and restless cattle outside. Whereas before it'd calmed him, now it unnerved him. A rising sense of anticipation stretched from his core to his extremities, starting to numb him from the hot temperature.

"Which channel?" Steve went into the living room and found the remote, speaking to Tootsie again as his eyes fixed onto the black screen in the corner.

" _It doesn't matter. They're covering it on all channels. Oh Steve..."_ Tootsie drifted off and he thought he heard her sob.

For a moment, that sound startled him. The pathologist rarely got so emotional – Steve could probably count the number of times he'd experienced it on one hand – and she wouldn't ordinarily have called _him_ to share it. They weren't close in that sense. In fact, the only thing he could think of was…

 _No._

Steve's familiar sense of calm fluttered with sudden uncertainty as he quickly turned the television on. Instantly, he was assaulted by images of something he couldn't register at first; it was complete chaos. Then, his eyes picked up water, bloodied faces, broken palm trees, screaming, crying…and the scope kept expanding beyond a mere freak accident.

In a blur of motion, pictures and video footage flashed by under rolling headlines and were put to sound by voices tinted with fright and disbelief. He couldn't hear the words, however. All sounds fell to a stuffed silence as his eyes perused the whole headline rolling across the screen _._

' _Breaking news: Tsunami disaster in South East Asia – thousands suspected dead'._

Frozen in place, Steve felt only detached disbelief as more video footage of the mass destruction appeared on the TV screen. This was impossible. It wasn't really happening…was it? It had to be some sort of bad hoax, someone's terrible idea of a joke. Otherwise, why would Tootsie call him even though she knew he was on holiday leave, unfamiliar despair in her voice, urging him to tell her it wasn't true?

"Toots?"

The question barely managed to get past his lips in one piece before the air petered out of his lungs.

A map of South East Asia had filled the screen, many coastal countries highlighted and numbers popping up here and there. Preliminary death tolls, maybe. Steve couldn't really let himself dwell on that. Cold dread washed over him as he stepped closer and searched for the answer he already _knew_ had to be there.

And there it was: Thailand. Phuket. Khao Lak...

"Oh my God," whispered Steve as he half-reached up to trace the country on the TV screen. He felt as if someone had punched him straight in the guts. " _Oh my God…_ "

" _Steve, it's where she is, isn't it?"_ Tootsie had started crying in full now; he could hear her struggle to keep her voice level and controlled, wet sniffles breaking the monotone silence that followed the quiet statement. _"Steve?_ Steve _?"_

He barely heard her; he was already far away in his own world. The phone only just stayed in his grip. He sank down on the couch and the remote fell onto the seat beside him. His hand rested upon his thigh as every muscle in his neck and back tensed.

It was as if the ground threatened to disappear beneath his feet.

A dream? Could it be? Was he still asleep? No, no one would make up something like this. Not even the deepest fears of his mind. It had to be real. The facts were all in support of that. Earthquakes happened in that area; a tsunami had always been a threat if there was a large enough seismic event.

And now the threat had become reality.

" _Steve_?" Tootsie's voice sounded from far off somewhere. Automatically, Steve brought the phone up to his ear again, the arm having fallen down into his lap. _"Is it—"_

"It's where she is." Steve suddenly found his throat a bit thick; he had to swallow hard and the action hurt. His eyes were still fixated on the screen, both taking in and not really seeing what was being shown.

On the other side of the line, Tootsie broke down into loud sobs and he faintly heard another voice cut in, obviously trying to calm her down. He thought it sounded familiar, but he wasn't really registering it. He didn't really feel as if he was truly here, and maybe he wasn't. Maybe it was a dream after all and he'd wake up soon.

" _I-I tried calling her…"_ After shrugging off that other person, Tootsie seemed to regain some of her control. _"Both her and Bridget, but none of them has answered. I'm being sent straight to voicemail."_

Steve didn't reply at first, eyes still on the television, entranced by the pictures burning themselves into his retinae one by one. When he started speaking, it didn't really feel like him doing it. It was just the words themselves leaking out of him.

"She...Tessa left me a message on voicemail...before she left." Distantly, he noted that his voice was quiet, almost deadened. "She sounded fine. She was looking forward to the time off. It's been tough on her, you know. She needed the break, she—"

He couldn't continue. His voice was simply cramped inside his throat, trapped, pulsating uncomfortably and chilling his body in the process. Shivers ran down his spine, reminding him he still hadn't put his T-shirt on.

This was too real. Too close. And yet, too surreal at the same time.

"I've got to go," he said suddenly and hung up.

In the weeks to come, Steve didn't know how long he'd sat unmoving on the couch, glued to the screen, the voices of news reporters filtering through his ears as if through water. And yet the memory was strikingly clear and each incredulous report had throbbed in his chest until blood was pounding underneath his skin.

It'd felt like forever. As time passed excruciatingly slow, Steve sat there on the couch, mobile phone lying loosely in his hand. For every heartbeat, he came one step closer to chaos. His mind was already in upheaval; he had no control.

 _Tessa..._

Despite what Tootsie had told him – that was so far in the past now, had she even said it? – despite his instincts telling him there was no point, that there'd be no answer, Steve punched the number he knew by heart and listened intently as a connection formed.

"Please pick up, Tessa," mumbled Steve beneath his breath, "please pick up. Pick it up."

" _Hi—"_

"Tessa?"

"— _you've reached—"_

"Damn it!" Steve pulled the phone back angrily and punched the number again, with extra force. "Come on, Tessa, pick up the phone, _please_!"

" _Hi, you've—"_

"God damn it!"

Steve repeated his previous action again...and again...and again. Each time the same slightly worn, tired voice told him to leave a message after the beep.

"— _leave a mess—"_

In full-blown rage, Steve flung the phone across the room. It _crashed_ into the wall and dropped to the floor, but he was already storming away from the living room, half-running to his brother-in-law's laptop sitting on the kitchen table.

It was turned off and Steve fired off another string of expletives, shifting impatiently on his feet as he waited for the damn thing to start up. It took ages and when the welcome screen finally appeared, he needed a password.

" _Shit_!" Steve banged his fist onto the wooden table, making the computer and a few empty glasses left over from breakfast rattle on the table-top.

"Hey! What're you doing?" Steve looked up and found Melissa glaring at him from the doorway. She stepped forward and rescued the glasses standing very close to the edge of the table. "You trying to break something?"

"I need to get online."

Melissa raised an eyebrow, lips pursed thin. "Really? You could've just asked, you know. It's rude to just—"

" _Missy_!" interrupted Steve angrily, only distantly noticing the shocked look crossing her face. "I _need_ to get online! It's _important_."

"What's happened?" she demanded, her voice a bit more toned down, obviously confused. Probably hadn't seen him like this in years, if ever.

"Please, Missy, just punch in the _damn_ password!" For emphasis, Steve punched the table again on both sides of the laptop, his blood pressure rising rapidly until it pounded deafeningly in his ears.

"Hey! I'm not doing anything when you're in such a mood! Now tell me what's going on!" She crossed her arms stubbornly, brows knitted together in a glare.

Before he could think twice, Steve had stepped up to her and grabbed her upper arms tightly. "God damn it, Missy, I _need_ to get that password! I have to call the _embassy_ – I have to _find_ her!"

"Find _who_?"

Melissa was genuinely confused now, but Steve fell abruptly silent, the name stuck in his throat. His chest was heaving like he'd run five miles and his eyes were burning unfamiliarly in pain, blurring his vision. Again, it felt like the ground was going to disappear and pull him straight down the drain, and he began to hyperventilate slightly.

The big brown eyes below him softened. Melissa reached up and he was shocked to see wetness coming off his cheeks on her fingertips. He never cried so easily.

"Steve... What's going on?" Melissa asked quietly, eyes wide in fright.

The fight suddenly drained away. Steve let his arms fall to his sides as he turned away from his sister, running his hands over his wet face shamefully. A hand came to rest upon his elbow, but he couldn't face her, still gasping slightly for breath.

Instead, he pointed towards the living room and muttered, "Telly."

Working to control his heaving chest and rubbing away those few tears that'd fallen, Steve heard his sister step into the living room. Silence ensued until he heard her utter a soft, _"Oh my God,"_ and he squeezed his eyes shut against the renewed sensation of burning.

Minutes or eternities later, her hand was back on his elbow and turning him towards her. Steve met his sister's eyes reluctantly, knowing his own were shining brightly and traitorously, catching him completely off guard.

"Who is she?" asked Melissa gently, her own eyes wide and frightened.

Steve exhaled noisily in an attempt to get his breathing under control, reminding himself that he was a police officer, damn it. He should handle this better. He should…

He cleared his throat. "Tessa. She's—she's..." Steve halted, throat constricting before he gathered his wits again, but only barely; he could feel his control spiralling out from under him again. "Um, she's on vacation with a friend there. Thailand. One of the areas hit. I—" He pursed his lips tightly, staving off the tears as best as he could. "I can't reach her on her mobile."

"Oh, Stevie. . ." whispered Melissa, and her understanding overwhelmed his last remaining bit of self-control.

Squeezing his eyes tightly shut, Steve sank forward and let himself drown in his sister's neck as he tried desperately to keep his breaths even.

* * *

 **Sydney  
New South Wales, Australia  
** _The Same Day_

Imogen 'Tootsie' Soames wiped the tears off her cheeks, but they kept running of their own volition with no regard to her attempts. Her hands were shaking. She'd just received a telephone from Tessa's mother. Fanny hadn't been able to raise her daughter and she was out of her wits trying to find answers, finally turning to her daughter's friends, whose number she'd gotten through Tessa's workplace and Inspector Thorne.

Tootsie didn't know herself what to do. She'd been frozen in front of the box until the news started to repeat itself over and over, like an old broken record playing the same wretched tune until your mind started to go haywire. Only a warm arm around her shoulders had been her momentary comfort, but now it was gone as he'd been called out to work.

 _Who can murder someone when this is on the news?_

Who in their right mind could willingly take someone else's life when a natural disaster has claimed a steadily rising number of innocent souls? It was bizarre. Twisted. Sick. Tootsie had never been disgusted with the thought before, but now her stomach clenched and she became nauseated.

She stood from the couch and found a glass of cold water to drink. It was gulped down hastily and filled to the brim a second time. Again and again, she swallowed the lump and the sickness threatening to escape, until tears sprung forth from her eyes and she sank down on heavy elbows on the kitchen sink.

The worry was nagging her. The fear that'd grabbed a hold of her since she'd first made the connection was making her head spin and heart race. She'd tried futilely – like Fanny – to call Tessa on her mobile phone. Then she'd traced down Bridget Murphy and done it again with the same results. The funny thing was how she expected it after seeing those pictures on the screen. Who thought of their mobile phones when a 40-metre-high ocean wave was crashing towards them? It made Tootsie chuckle and she smiled dumbly over her own foolish thought before erupting into a new sob.

Tootsie could honestly say she hadn't had many friends over the years. Work was everybody's enemy and she'd never been a very sociable creature in the first place. So it put her out how much this event was affecting her. Admittedly, Tessa was likely her best female friend, but the ten-plus age difference was sometimes noticeable and put some limits on their friendship. Not that she'd ever trade Tessa for anyone. She reminded Tootsie of how it was to be younger and idealistic.

Maybe it was the whole past month that was bugging her as much as it had the rest of the team, Tootsie reasoned, stifling her sniffles and blowing her nose. She'd been quite tense and emotional lately as well, according to her silent companion.

Determined to stop the tears, Tootsie pursed her lips and laid the handkerchief out of sight, as if to push the reminder away. She couldn't turn off the television, however. She had to stay on top of things. The news reporter had last said there were Australians in the vicinity of the tsunami epicentre and that the local embassies were working to find them.

Tootsie wondered if Steve had gotten in touch with the embassy in Thailand yet. It'd been hours since she'd called him; it was closing in on evening. He had to be beside himself in his own special way. Tessa and him had always had a unique relationship, although it'd been particularly strained the past few months.

She looked across the room at the phone lying on the counter separating the kitchen and the living room, half willing it to ring.

Four seconds later it rang.

Tootsie rose quickly and picked the phone up after two long strides. "Steve?"

It was. He didn't speak at first and when he did, it made her chest constrict.

" _They couldn't tell me anything,"_ Steve said at the other end, sounding defeated. _"They have my number to call me back, but..."_ He drifted off. Tootsie didn't dare speak, sensing there was something he wished to say, or couldn't say. _"I've—I've been talking to Fanny, Tess's mother... Someone had suggested to her about going up there to help."_ He sighed. " _It's chaos, Toots. Nobody knows anything because it's impossible to know. Hospital's got something going on in terms of registering victims, but they're overflowing with patients and... It's just chaos."_

"You've been thinking of going," Tootsie stated simply. Steve didn't answer. "Steve, as you said, it's not..." She paused for a deep breath, facts and images of what to expect flashing through her mind. She was a medical examiner and she did autopsies – she _knew_. "It's not pretty. Are you sure you're up to it?"

" _Yes,"_ Steve replied quickly, almost a bit too quickly, startling her. This from the man who hated autopsies. _"I—I need to know, Toots. This uncertainty... I can't stay here knowing she's up there in that…that_ _ **chaos**_ _. Alone. I just..."_

She understood too well. Although she'd never praised herself on being a great judge of character, she knew Steve valued the hard and solid evidence. He liked having something to support his beliefs on, something unquestionable and trustworthy. Right now, he had none of that.

"Okay," Tootsie told him softly. "I'll support you. I'll even come with you."

" _No!"_ Steve protested, then sighed. _"No, I'd—I mean—I'd appreciate doing this...on my own."_

Tootsie didn't reply, understanding. If it'd been her in his situation, she wouldn't have wanted others to intervene either. He needed this. Although Tootsie felt it was unfair – she needed to know if Tessa was alive or not just as much as he did – she also felt he'd earned the right. Whatever else had happened in the past, her and Tessa's relationship could never compare to theirs.

"When will you go?" Tootsie asked instead, focusing the conversation in another direction, biting her lip.

" _As soon as I can get a ticket. Probably tomorrow, or the day after."_

"Okay, safe journey, call me when you get there," Tootsie said gently. "And Steve? Bring her home." She couldn't bring herself to say 'dead or alive', like some Western wanted poster, but it wasn't necessary: he understood. It was a given.

" _I will,"_ Steve promised in a low mumble, ending the connection.


	4. Chapter 4

**Sydney Airport, Australia – Bangkok International, Thailand  
** _December 28_ _th_

Steve had packed his small bag quickly with whatever items he thought he'd need, equipped with pictures of Tessa in case he needed to put up posters. He'd chosen not to give much thought to what he was doing, instead just focusing on getting the task done. The other things could come later, once she'd been found and taken care of.

Now he was standing in line at Sydney Airport with a number of others like him, all talking about how they were going up there to find relatives or friends, or just simply to help with the work up there. He was surprised by the sheer number of volunteers, reminding him of the community spirit he was used to while growing up in the countryside. It lacked in Sydney, where the four walls of people's homes were both their protector and their captor.

It was a morning flight – the earliest he could get on short notice. He would be landing around midday local time. Steve was much too tense to get any sleep on the plane, however, and he resorted to stare out the window silently as he'd done for the past twenty-four hours.

Time went slow. The plane was packed to the brim with people and Steve had ended up next to a couple of talkative volunteers, who kept going on about the recent figures and internet forums having been set up for missing persons and death toll, before they changed topics to cricket and politics. Though usually a cricket fan, Steve ignored the conversation beside him and didn't feel like giving his two cents. Who could talk of cricket when his partner was still missing in a tsunami-devastated area?

Steve's latest call to the embassy had found some semblance to order and control, but they still claimed Tessa hadn't made contact with them, nor had they managed to track her down. He'd asked about Bridget as well, but failed on her physical description as he didn't recall her face when they asked him to identify her. As far as they'd known, however, she hadn't been located either. It made him briefly wonder if someone was going up there to look for her as well. Steve hadn't thought of bringing a photo of her.

It made him feel guilty all of a sudden.

Forcing the feeling down, Steve returned to stare blankly at the white clouds underneath the wings and blue sky stretching on into the distance. The sun was shining. It'd been a promising hot day back in Australia. The weather reports said it would be hot in Thailand too.

A sudden image of one of his old cases popped into his mind and Steve grimaced in disgust. He knew what heat and water did to bodies. He'd heard Tootsie recite the effects often enough to know the details. And he was getting straight into this.

 _No. Leave it for later. You can't fuck this up._

It was hard: the more he tried to forget it, the more it kept repeating itself inside his mind, but Steve somehow managed to get rid of the thought by thinking of something else. He thought of the last night he and Tessa had done some renovation on his house together. It was more than three months ago, before the politician case, before the art gallery murder. She'd had paint on her face. Adorable, he'd reckoned. Fierce, teasing, and beautiful.

The image stayed with him and, without his knowledge, a smile.

* * *

At the airport, Steve gathered his small bag and exited the baggage reclaim area after the many volunteers and searchers like himself. He'd gotten into a conversation with one of them about getting transportation to the embassy, but another had said there was no point; visiting the embassy was only a waste of time – the hospitals had better records of who the patients were. So he was now in a group of six like him, four Aussies and two Kiwis, all coming here with a common goal: to find someone they knew or loved.

The airport was overflowing with tourists and travellers. Most of them seemed all right, with no visual injuries, but they were soon replaced with the first signs of a disaster having struck them: foreigners with bandaged arms and legs, bruises the size of tea cups and gashes all over their bodies. Steve overheard a woman speaking in rapid Scandinavian, or German – he wasn't sure – and saw the tears trailing down her dirtied cheeks even though she smiled into the payphone. A small child was clinging to her leg in apathy, wide-eyed. They were obvious survivors.

A sense of dread filled him as he passed others in similar state on his way to the exit. The group ahead of him had fallen silent, walking steadily, but at the same time gazing around at all the people cluttered in the departing hall waiting for a plane to take them home.

"We're heading to the hotel first, then the main hospital in Phuket," a burly man told Steve in a broad northern accent.

Frankie MacPhearson had come from Cairns and was looking for his cousin and her husband. They'd been reported missing. His wife was currently keeping an eye on the forums, he'd told Steve earlier as they'd waited for their luggage. Apparently some forums had been put up for organising missing and found reports from next of kin. Steve had sent Tootsie a text message to check it out as soon as he'd turned on his phone.

"Then we'll just take them as they go," Frankie continued after a short break.

Steve only nodded, not knowing what to say. He usually had words in these situations, being thrown into them nearly every week, but now he couldn't find any. He just let his feet carry him away.

They managed to get a driver and a van. The driver was of the small-talker type; he kept on and on about this and that, but mostly about what he'd experienced. A lot of people needed a lift from the airport to the hospital, he said. Many foreigners.

Steve only gazed out of the window at the busy streets and markets passing them. It seemed just like any other big city. But it wasn't.

* * *

 **Sydney**  
 **New South Wales, Australia  
** _The Same Day_

Tootsie looked up as a text message ticked in on her mobile phone.

She rose quickly, nearly tipping over her cup of cocoa in the process, and went to the kitchen counter where her phone had been awfully silent for the last five hours.

"It's from Steve," she exclaimed, voice shaking as she read. "He's landed. He says to check out the Internet – there are forums and lists published by hospitals and embassies."

"I'm on it," her companion replied, more toned down and calm than she could ever hope to be right now.

Lance Fisk had graying hair and inquisitive eyes that often put a spell on her, but Tootsie could honestly say she couldn't have done without his silent strength. She followed him as he found her laptop and logged on.

Together they sat down, neither saying a word, and looked wherever they could think of, until finally stumbling across a wealth of sites slowly coming about with their forums and missing/found sections. With a heavy heart, Tootsie guided him around and made the necessary posts.

"We'll have to write a description under the 'missing' section," Tootsie stated before laughing nervously. "Even though I have no idea what she was wearing or—or where she was staying. All I know is that she was in Khao Lak."

Lance looked up at her, not smiling with her, taking her hand in his. "We'll work it out. Fanny must know something. Didn't she say Tessa called her three days ago?"

Tears in her eyes, Tootsie nodded. "Yes. Yes, you're right. I'll...I'll give her a call." She stood and found her phone again, swallowing the lump in her throat as she punched the number she wondered would stick to her memory for months afterwards.

* * *

 **Phuket  
Phuket, Thailand  
** _The Same Day_

It was inevitable. Steve had known it'd be worse. He just didn't expect it, nor was he prepared for the sights surrounding him. Wounded were lying all over the place, on carpets or mattresses, most heavily bandaged and with the eyes of someone who'd seen the world crash around them. There were nurses and doctors running in all directions, never resting, always on the move. They barely had time to point them in the direction of the boards carrying pictures and descriptions of patients.

In front of the numerous corkboards, people huddled together, watched over each other's shoulders and snuck a peek wherever they could. It was crowded, filled to the brim with foreigners and locals alike, everyone searching for someone. Not everyone was like him either, coming overseas. Many looked as if they'd been here when it happened, still clothed in dirty scraps or sporting minor and major injuries.

It was impossible not to get affected and one of the Kiwis in Steve's group was openly crying – a young woman, searching for her parents that'd been on a holiday trip. As for himself, Steve felt a familiar detachedness fill him as he walked firmly towards the lists and began to work through them methodically.

One list after another, Steve read and moved on to the next name or picture. So many wounded, so many unidentified and identified people having been caught in one of Earth's biggest natural disasters to date. Yet even as those around him were crying or frowning solemnly, Steve felt nothing had ever been seen with such clarity. He had a purpose here.

His heart skipped a beat when he saw a Polaroid of a blonde woman high up on the corkboard. He wound his way around an elderly woman bent over to read a list over European patients, standing on his toe balls for a better view.

It wasn't Tessa.

Steve withdrew his eyes and went back to where he'd left, scouring through the list until he reached the end.

Beside him, one of the Aussies – an elderly fellow from Sydney – had found his brother in one of the pictures. He was grinning through his tears, rejoicing happily as he hurried out of the room. Steve watched him go until he shook himself out of his stupor, cursing himself as he did so.

Tessa wasn't in any of the pictures or on the lists. Steve searched them all, thrice over. So did the rest of the group he was now travelling with by circumstance. Apart from the Sydney man who'd found his brother alive and well, none of them had found the ones they were looking for.

"Well, there's a lot of hospitals," the second New Zealander – a young man looking for the rest of his family – spoke up as they reconvened outside to try and catch another driver.

Steve wondered how many more he could visit before the end of the day.

* * *

In Phuket International Hospital, Steve held a little boy's hand while the doctor gave him a morphine shot. A good chunk of his leg had been taken in the fight against the tidal wave, and later, in a bad infection. Nobody knew who or where his family was. All the boy spoke was a European language and they hadn't found someone to interpret yet. But the brave smile he gave Steve afterwards made his stomach clench as he smiled in return.

God, the boy looked only about seven or eight years old. Only a few years older than Gabby. Brown-tanned from hours in the sun and with light hair brighter than Tessa's blonde curls. He'd probably run around and played in the sea or the hotel swimming pool. He shouldn't be lying there. Injured. Alone in the world. Still smiling.

The image stayed with him as Steve went outside to find his travelling companions. Kids were always hard when he found them dead. In this setting, it was a bittersweet victory to find kids alive but with no family and badly wounded. The doctors hadn't known whether the infection would spread and they'd be forced to amputate. For the kid's sake, Steve hoped it'd work out.

"You right?" Frankie asked him as he stepped up to them.

"Yeah," Steve mumbled. The others just looked at him in understanding. This was their fourth hospital – it didn't get any better or prettier.

Two more of their group had split off when they'd found their loved ones – the female Kiwi had found her mother, and one of the Aussies had found their friend. Now they were down to three. Frankie, Steve and the young Kiwi male looking for his family.

"So this woman you're looking for, who is she? Sister? Girlfriend?" Frankie asked him as they waited for an available driver to come by them. He looked at him curiously but seemingly without expecting an answer. Steve had been close-lipped ever since they'd arrived.

Steve almost smiled at the thought. Tessa his girlfriend? No way.

"No, she's not my girlfriend," Steve clarified. "She's my partner. Police."

"You're a copper?" Frankie looked surprised. Steve nodded. "Blimey! You must be used to this, then. Identifying people, I mean," he mumbled quickly, then froze as he reconsidered his words. "Sorry, that didn't sound right."

"It's all right," Steve assured him, hands in his shorts pockets, his neck and shoulders aching with tension. Frankie looked sheepish and ashamed.

"Well, sorry anyway. It's not exactly...well, you know, it wasn't very considerate." He flushed.

Steve didn't reply. The Kiwi man shifted on his feet, mimicking Steve with hands in his pockets.

"What unit are you in?" Frankie asked after a momentary pause. Small talk. They were standing amongst wounded and mourning people and making small talk.

 _Some cope like that. Self-preservation. You use black humour and detachment. Well, until you started yelling._

"I'm in Homicide," Steve replied, the thought weighing heavily on his mind right then. The conversation halted with that statement, but Steve didn't instigate continuation, and Frankie turned to the New Zealander instead.

Nearly ten years of Homicide experience under his belt; some would say he could count himself lucky. Those experiences wouldn't make this seem as awful to him as any other murder. Ignorance, Steve decided, would be man's downfall.

He didn't think about it further. He knew the cost of those experiences that'd made this event have less effect on him, and he wouldn't count himself lucky.

However, right now he appreciated his cold heart of steel.

* * *

Tessa wasn't in any of the Phuket hospitals. It was closing in on evening and fewer drivers were willing to take him down to Khao Lak to start going through the ruins there. He wouldn't search the mortuaries yet. There was still hope. It had only been three days and Tessa was in good shape and a strong-willed woman – he had faith in her survival. He had to.

Steve was sitting in his hotel room watching CNN on the small satellite telly when the phone called. It was Fanny.

Throughout the day she'd been calling him nearly every hour to hear if there was any news. He couldn't get annoyed with her. If his daughter had been missing in an area where tens of thousands had been reported missing or dead, he would've wanted to get updated every hour too, even when there was no new news to hear.

"Hello, Mrs Simmons," Steve greeted.

" _Mr Hayden...Steve...have you—have you found anything?"_ Her voice was thick and shaking. She knew he hadn't found her or else he'd call, but she still needed the words of reassurance.

"I've been through the hospitals in the area today. I'm afraid I found nothing." He leaned heavily on his elbows as he rubbed his eyes. The jetlag wasn't doing him any good, neither did the running around, but he wouldn't complain about it. "I've got a friend looking at the forums and keeping me informed. She's sent me off to several places to follow up on a description or other. It'd be a great help if I knew where Tessa was staying..."

Fanny sighed openly, taking a moment to check herself. _"She was talking about some sort of resort in Khao Lak. I—I barely spoke to her that day. They were staying in a—a bungalow, I think?"_

 _How easily they turned to past tense,_ Steve's mind supplied him darkly, and he pushed it away quickly. He couldn't fall into this trap.

"Do you remember her saying anything about which part of town? East, west, north, south? Anything at all, no matter how small, will help." He said this to reassure her, as if she was just another regular witness sitting with information sitting deep in her conscience. It was a role he fell into easily.

" _I'm sorry...I'm quite useless,"_ Fanny sniffled, obviously distressed.

Steve reigned in his sigh, wishing not for the first time that Tessa had told him where she was staying in the message she'd left on voicemail. But no, it'd been just a simple message to say she'd taken their advice and gone on a holiday trip to Khao Lak in Thailand; that Bridget Murphy had found some cheap left-over tickets and they were leaving the same day.

"Okay. Let's try something else," Steve said, returning to the present. "Where were you when you received the phone call?"

" _We were at Minnie's...uh, Tessa's step-sister. We'd just had Christmas dinner."_

"All right, and what were you doing at the time?"

" _Cleaning up,"_ Fanny replied. _"I answered the phone inside the kitchen."_

"Close your eyes and visualise it," Steve told her. "Try to remember what you were doing, what you saw and what you heard while talking to Tessa. It might jog your memory." Cognitive method had worked on many eyewitnesses over the years; it was amazing what they managed to remember just by visualising their memories.

" _Well, as I said, I was cleaning up. Minnie offered to give me a hand, but I insisted on doing it myself, telling her to take care of the kids. Then Tessa called and I... I was a bit surprised, but pleased. She wished me Merry Christmas and asked how I was doing. I told her fine and asked her the same. She said she'd taken an early holiday leave and was in Thailand with a friend. She didn't say why, and I think she was hesitant to say it, but I brushed it off because...because it's how it's always been. And then Guy came asking me if I wanted to come outside and Tessa said something about... oh!"_ Fanny exclaimed suddenly. _"She mentioned something about going to the restaurant at the hotel. It was called... oh, what was that name...? Yes, I remember now – the_ _Thai Sunflower_ _!"_

" _Thai Sunflower_? You're sure?" Steve asked to clarify. It sure sounded like any sort of restaurant in a typical holiday paradise. Any name would be useful, no matter how common and unoriginal – he could ask the locals about the nearby hotels and such.

" _Yes, I'm sure. I was watering a flower at the same time, so I remember it now. Will it help?"_

"Yes, very much, thank you," Steve said in earnest, reaching up to rake a hand through his hair. He felt exhausted. It'd been a very long day. He should get some rest. Whatever he could get.

" _Oh, anything I can do...just...just let me know, okay?"_ Fanny sounded tired too, as well as hesitant and distraught. Worried like a mother hen. So different from how Tessa had described their relationship.

Steve wondered what else hid behind Tessa's mask as he watched the mute CNN news on the telly covering another story on survivors from Sumatra – it'd been the worst area hit.

"I will."


	5. Chapter 5

**Khao Lak  
Phang Nga, Thailand  
** _December 29th_

Steve had gotten up early in the morning, practically at dawn, and found the world to be almost as awake as it'd been when he finally got to bed last night. A shower was hard to get by – it'd be a waste of water in these circumstances, and Steve couldn't handle his selfish needs on his conscience – so he just washed with a small basin of cold water and soap.

Breakfast consisted of some fruit and crackers he'd brought along in his bag, and a bottle of Aussie water. Steve had never been more grateful for his mother's concern, and yet when he was out there searching...he felt like a heartless selfish bastard. He was just there for his partner; he wasn't focused on helping others locate their loved ones – with the exception of Frankie – or giving them aid. And still no one called him out on it. No one seemed to care, and maybe they didn't – they had enough on their minds after all.

He met up with Frankie in the reception of the hotel they stayed at – it was located on the east coast, where the devastation seemed like a bad memory. The contrast was appalling.

"Ready to go?" Frankie asked in his northern accent, face drawn in a grimace Steve knew all too well. It was of the man who'd seen more than most and had to find some way to deal with it all. Most days it met him in the mirror.

"Yeah," Steve said, pulling his shoulder bag on with all necessities, including the photos and posters he'd made yesterday evening after Fanny's call when he couldn't sleep. They'd be going into the area Tessa and Bridget had stayed in, Khao Lak – there was more of a chance to find information there than in Phuket. "Got any sleep?"

"A little. Talked to me wife and me uncle. They had a lot of questions, so I got in late. Did you hear the ruckus outside around 2 AM?" Steve nodded. How could he avoid it? He'd barely gotten three hours of sleep just before dawn, and couldn't blame it all on the jetlag. "Any idea what it was?"

As it happened, Steve did have an idea, but he doubted Frankie would like to hear it. Gunshots and screams never bode well, and Steve had a strong suspicion that just around the corner, they'd find a crime scene. Who did what and why wasn't Steve's concern, though. He had enough of this at home. He couldn't deal with it here as well. Not with all this going on.

"No," Steve replied straight-faced, looking around to see if the driver had shown up yet. He had; a lorry in rusty colours stood just across the road. "The driver's here."

"Blimey, that 'e is!" Frankie smiled. A small comfort in the face of something horrible. "Let's go then."

* * *

They got to Khao Lak two hours later.

According to what Steve had seen of photos and video footage on the news back in Australia, it could hardly compare to the vast and expansive sight of mass destruction surrounding them on all fronts. The lorry had to let them off in the middle of the rubble and debris as it was impossible to get further on wheels, even after three days of cleaning up. They paid him and left down one of the many streets of death.

The first thing that struck them was the smell. The horrible stench of death and sewage permeating the air and sticking to their skin. Frankie gagged. Steve didn't think any less of him.

They saw many had tied cloths over their nose and mouth, and copied the action. It was a small help, but it wasn't possible to completely escape the stench. Steve frowned underneath the cloth, breathing with his mouth instead of his nose. Sure he'd smelled this before, but those times couldn't quite compare to this. The simple extent of it all…

As they walked down the streets, Steve couldn't keep his eyes to himself. The sights were worse than he'd ever seen before. Body bags were lined up along the street even now, three days after the disaster: blue, white, transparent, orange – some of them were even make-shift bags made of old curtains and clothes someone had scrounged up somewhere. People, mostly locals, walked in and among the body bags, both crying and stone-faced, looking after their dead as they waited to be identified and buried.

"It ain't pretty," Frankie mumbled lowly at Steve's side, almost startling him.

Steve knew that. Tootsie had told him. And still...it couldn't prepare him for this. All his years of 'experience' paled in comparison to the disaster he was faced with here in this previous holiday paradise. He hoped he'd never have to experience it again.

They walked on without trying to seem as they were escaping. It wasn't possible to escape, either, as the streets went on and on forever. The latest toll had been more than thousands confirmed dead just here in Thailand, yet with the sights around him, Steve knew the tally wasn't finished.

As they got down to the beach, Steve finally got to see up close how the people he'd seen at the hospital had gotten their injuries. Debris everywhere. Palm trees shot to splinters. Solid brick blocks torn down and lying in a big pile of rubble. The smell was obvious. For the first time since he'd set foot on this land, Steve halted mid-step and just stared out at the devastation.

Three days ago, it'd been a blooming beach line with hotels, cafés, bungalows and smiling, happy faces enjoying a break from every day's toil and moil. Now it was nothing but a garbage dump. He couldn't even begin to see the beautiful surroundings Tessa had described to her mother.

"You okay?" Frankie asked him.

Steve didn't have the number of how many times they'd passed the question between them.

"Huh? Yeah, yeah, 'm all right." Steve felt like he couldn't say anything else. He was supposed to be the experienced one here. Frankie was just a plumber from Cairns who'd never been abroad before. Steve had nearly nine years in Homicide under his belt. "What was that name the driver came up with?"

"Blue Ocean Resort?" Frankie retorted.

Steve nodded, dragging his eyes away from the lazy waves that rolled against the sand, ignoring the thoughts churning inside his head. "It's around here, he said."

Steve looked around, seeing nothing but rubble and debris. Some aid workers in orange vests were still combing through the coastal line, but not as many as he'd expected. Probably off somewhere else. Someone had said the beaches had been cleared of bodies first, as that's where most of them were after the tidal wave retreated.

Steve tried not to think of it. If Tessa had been in a bungalow…

They went on, away from the beach, towards the biggest rubbles that had probably once been the hotels. They ran into some locals who spoke decent enough English, who asked if they needed help. As always, Steve was amazed at their non-hesitation to offer help even though most of the dead were probably among their own countrymen.

After a few minutes of talking back and forth, an elderly Thai male offered to guide them to their destination, as this area was easy to get lost in. Steve thanked him and Frankie smiled.

The Thai – a previous waiter by the name Danh – turned out to know the resort they were looking for, as he'd worked there before his now previous workplace. He seemed like a lively person, or at least had been, and he kept talking animatedly about the previous days. He'd been lucky to seek shelter on the roof of his hotel, but he'd witnessed many who weren't so lucky. Afterwards, he said, he'd helped people who'd been stuck underneath debris and bricks, and even up some trees.

Steve fell out of the conversation after the first five minutes. It seemed it was the same wherever he went. People wanted to share their side of the big story, of how this'd been to them. No one seemed like they were competing, however. He'd known a few people in his life who measured the pain they suffered against each other, but not here, not in Thailand. It wasn't a competition, it was survival.

Despite his attempts, he couldn't keep from overhearing some of what the old Thai was talking about. It wasn't possible to ignore these horrors. Like a horror movie, it was fascinating in the bizarre sense.

It struck him that Tessa would have been right in her element, as horrible as it was to admit. She loved the bizarre, and she could never keep her nose out of the stories she was told. It wasn't her way. She couldn't simply ignore it as Steve could. In that way, she was so much stronger than him.

But it'd also been the reason behind all their shouting matches in the past few months, the memories of which now almost made him sick. So pointless, really, arguing about stuff like that when things like _this…_

He couldn't finish that thought.

"Steve," Frankie broke through his uneasy trance. "We're here."

Steve looked up and saw nothing had really changed. It was still the same shit surrounding him. Still, a shiver ran down his spine. This was where Tessa and Bridget had stayed. In one of the bungalows. He looked, but there were none left standing. They'd all been washed away by the furious sea.

Their Thai guide was already off, calling to someone who was searching through the rubble of the half-standing hotel. He seemed to be gesturing the other Thai to get down. Minutes later, another man was standing next to him.

"He work here," Danh said in broken English. "No speak English."

Both of the Thai men were looking at him expectantly. Steve inhaled deeply, suddenly feeling weak, his heart thumping wildly. He reached into his shoulder bag and found one of the many photographs he'd brought along.

"Ask him if he's seen this woman," Steve asked whilst handing the photo over to the Thai man. The two men stared at it intensely. Steve didn't need to watch it again. He'd stared at it long enough in the past three days.

It was one of the few pictures he had of her, taken on one of the rare days off they'd spent together. Tootsie and Dee had also been there that day. They'd all gone to the amusement park to ward off Tessa's fright of ghost trains.

Ever since the full story about her dreadful fright as a kid got out, they'd been half teasing and half pushing her to get it over with. On that day she'd finally taken the dare. The picture was taken afterwards on the nearby beach, after she'd been on the train. It'd gone well. She was smiling and laughing at his jokes. Then Dee had snapped a photo and snuck a copy to him later – in it, they were sitting side by side, smiling widely into the camera. Close, but not touching.

Steve was pulled out of his mind as Danh spoke up: "He say yes."

His heart gave a sudden lurch.

"He's seen her? Where? When?" He could barely hold down his excitement. The Thai guide conversed in the local language, the other gesturing wildly here and there, before turning to Steve again.

"She live there," Danh pointed in direction of a pile of rubble and broken trees beyond the hotel ruins. So much for the bungalow. "With friend. Always smile. Big smile," he translated as the other Thai spoke in rapid tones.

Steve smiled, the first in days. So she'd been happy here. That was good. He'd been worried about that. She never took time off for herself, and lately…well, she'd needed it more than ever, probably. They'd both had.

The smile faltered, however, as he saw the crestfallen look upon the Thai's face.

"He not see her in four days," Danh translated. "Big wave take bungalow. No see her. No see her friend."

And that was that. In those simple words, Steve's insides broke and his back, his neck, and his shoulders tensed. Four days meant the day before the tsunami. He'd seen her last on the 25th, and then the bungalow had been taken by the wave.

Steve was ready to give up and go home.

But then the younger Thai spoke up again and Danh translated. "You try hospital. Many taken by wave go there."

"He's right, Steve," Frankie spoke up beside him, face set. "Even those trapped inside houses have survived the waves."

Steve had never felt more vulnerable, more naked, than in these moments where the three men stood around him and read his thoughts like they were their own, although they most likely were. Even so, he quickly tried to school his features; tried desperately to be his old self again, the hardened detective, and not someone who'd just realised…

"Thank you," Steve told the Thai, offering a small smile as Danh translated his gratitude. The man nodded and said something more.

"He say: good luck," Danh said. "He hope you find woman with big smile."

Unable to find words, Steve just nodded and turned away.

* * *

 **Sydney**  
 **New South Wales, Australia  
** _The Same Day_

"Did you get any sleep or have you been sitting here all night?" Lance asked gently as he sat down next to her on the couch, pushing a mug of hot tea into her hands. Tootsie grimaced as he reached up and ground his finger into a nasty knot underneath her shoulder blade.

"I got three hours in," Tootsie replied, sipping the tea gratefully. She knew he wasn't pleased she skipped sleep, but he still looked after her without nagging. It just didn't seem like a part of his nature, for which she was forever grateful. "Thanks."

"No problem," Lance retorted, unperturbed. "And have you found anything?"

"No," Tootsie sighed, feeling her emotions were considerably under control compared to the past two days. "I've been through most of the hospital lists, but they keep getting updated and—and there's so many names! Every hour there's at least twenty or thirty new names. Some have photos and some are just descriptions. I got Steve to run around and check them out yesterday in Phuket, but...I haven't called him yet today."

"Why not?"

"It's just...I'm not sure. He sounded so _different_ when I spoke to him last night. I don't think him being there was such a good idea. It..." She paused, wondering whether she should say it aloud. It'd been on her mind for the past three days, especially after Steve decided to go up there. She wasn't sure she could keep it to herself any longer. "It should have been _me_."

Lance sighed, leaning forward on his elbows before tilting his head at her with a ghost smile. "Thank you."

Tootsie was surprised. "For what?"

"For finally telling me why you've been so distant. Look, I know you're used to...the kind of situation that's up there...and that our beloved Hayden doesn't have the best love of...dead people...but if I may speak my mind: he needs this. More than you do," he added softly.

Tootsie felt her eyes burn and looked down at the hot mug of tea in her hands. "I know. It's just..." She raised her head and met his gentle eyes. "What if she's—what if she didn't make it? I know Steve's a capable and strong man—a good Detective—but if he finds Tessa..."

She couldn't say the word. It'd be a step in the wrong direction and it was too foreign a concept in conjunction with her young friend. Tessa couldn't be… _gone._

She continued after a moment's hesitation "...I fear he won't make it. He'll think he's failed and I don't know if he'll self-destruct or what, but something bad will happen. We both know he's not the detached man he strives to be. I think the past few months should prove that."

"That may be true," Lance agreed, wrapping his hands together thoughtfully. She knew the idea his old colleague's daughter had died in a natural disaster didn't sit well with him either, but he was better at keeping a clear head in this situation. "But let us not try to think about this right now. Leave it for an appropriate time, _should_ it come. Remember, no news is good news."

And it was; Tootsie knew that. That they hadn't found Tessa yet didn't mean she hadn't survived. It was a chaotic area without much order – the governments had claimed it could take weeks to have a complete survey of this disaster. Until then, there was nothing else to do but scour the internet for information and talking to survivors on forums. A web browser window containing the list of Australians found dead or alive was constantly refreshed to see if Tessa's name would show up.

She half smiled, leaning into Lance's one-arm embrace, resting her head on his shoulder. It was comforting and it calmed her to hear his steady heartbeat. A rock, that's what he was. And a sensible one at that.

"Thank you," Tootsie muttered into the nape of his neck. He kissed her forehead.

* * *

 **Khao Lak  
Phang Nga, Thailand  
** _The Same Day_

"Steve!"

Steve turned and saw Frankie waving at him animatedly, a big smile reaching his eyes in the plump sunburned face. In his hand was a mobile phone. Steve quickly deduced there must've been happy news in some sort of way. He asked anyway.

"What's on?"

"They found her! Me cousin. She's at a hospital in Bangkok. Me wife just called – saw a photo on the net."

"That's great news," Steve smiled and Frankie reached for his hand and shook it vigorously.

"Thanks, mate," Frankie said. He had tears in his eyes. It was odd to see on the burly, sunburned, bald plumber from Cairns who'd never been abroad before. "I'm sorry to leave you, but you know..."

Yeah, Steve knew.

"Why don't you come with me?" Frankie asked suddenly. Steve wasn't sure. "Yeah, mate, maybe your partner's in Bangkok? They said a lot of people were sent up there. You could get that friend of yours in Sydney to check out the patient lists."

Steve knew the man was just trying to cheer him up, and yet he couldn't shake the thought entirely out of his head.

"I'll get her on it, but..." He paused, looking around at the woods surrounding them and towards the road leading to the temple.

They'd been on their way to the first makeshift mortuaries, having been through all the hospitals in the vicinity of Khao Lak, as well as talked to a lot of the locals, without coming up with anything to help them further.

It'd been a difficult choice to make. The worst in his life. Yet what Frankie was offering him was a way out, a new hope that maybe, just maybe, Tessa had been brought to Bangkok.

He looked back at Frankie and saw the understanding in his teary eyes. "It's not over, mate. There are still places we haven't been, people we haven't asked. All kinds of scenarios could have taken place. You sure you want to give up hope so soon?"

Steve only took a second extra to think it over. "No."

"Good. Good," Frankie said. "You wanna come with me or spend some more time down here?"

"I think I'll hang around here until my friend gets back to me."

 _Just in case. It's the logical thing to do._

"Well, good luck then," Frankie stated and held his hand out again.

Steve shook it with half a smile, and then watched as the plumber from Cairns walked away looking like the world had just taken a step towards the better.

He just hoped he'd be able to look like that too.

* * *

Steve had been showing Tessa's photo around when his phone rang. He stepped away from the German couple he'd been speaking with and pushed the green button quickly. "Tootsie? What've you got?"

The voice at the other end of the phone was sobbing. Steve's stomach plummeted and he closed his eyes as he waited for the final punch in his gut.

"Toots?" he asked again, low and with a rising lump in his throat.

" _I think it's her, Steve, I think it's her!"_ Tootsie blubbered into the speaker. It was impossible to judge her mood based on the thick voice.

He willed the blood to throb less in his ears; willed his heart to stop beating its way through his chest.

"Where?"

As the question passed his lips, he was suddenly encompassed by a serene calm he hadn't expected.

This was it. This was the moment. All else faded to the background as he focused solely and completely on the woman trying to control her short, quick gasps of breath. His mind was blank. All his fears, all his hopes, were gone. No room for them now. No room for anything but the possibility that—

" _Bangkok International Hospital."_

Steve's eyes flew open.

Before he got a chance to reply, Tootsie was prattling on. _"It was just posted. There's no name, only a description, but there's a photo and—and I think it might be_ _ **her**_ _. The hair, the nose, the mouth—it all matches her!"_

Steve froze. His eyes were set on the tropical forest around him, but he didn't really see it. It was like the world was moving at a snail's pace and he was watching it happen through a film of mist. Stunned, he realised there were tears in his eyes and he stared at his finger as it picked up the salty water on its tip.

The next thing he knew was that he couldn't keep the grin off his face, and every muscle, every nerve in his body moved at once. It was like he didn't know what to do with himself: how to walk, how to talk, how to _breathe._

 _She's alive. She's_ _ **alive**_ _!_

Then, just as suddenly, Steve faltered and the grin disappeared. "There's a photo and you just _think_ it's her?"

Tootsie hesitated. _"It's not pretty, Steve. She's very bruised and injured, and with the camera angle it's almost impossible to tell, but... Call it a gut instinct, Steve. It's her. I_ _ **know**_ _it is."_

Steve didn't know what to make of that, but he also knew he couldn't afford to let this go. His heart was set on this now. He wiped the short-lived tears away from his eyes, a sense of renewed purpose flowing through his veins.

"Okay. I'll go there."


	6. Chapter 6

**Bangkok  
** **Krung Thep Mahanakhon** **, Thailand  
** _December 30th_

It was a strange feeling that stumbled around in his being when he stepped across the threshold into the overcrowded hospital room. Even though he'd been here from late last night until this morning, Steve still couldn't tone down the relief and happiness he felt when he saw her lying in the third bed on the right.

The blonde hair was dirty, frizzled and knotted, pushed away from her face by a wrap of bandages covering a nasty head wound, but it was the first thing that told him yes, this was her. There was no doubt about it. It was Tessa there in that hospital bed. Tootsie's gut instinct had been right. He was never going to doubt a woman's intuition again.

Stepping up to her bed, Steve sat down on the right side and took her healthy lithe hand in his large and roughened one. Despite the pallor of her skin, he could see she'd worked up quite a tan in the days before the tsunami. Probably much darker than his natural tan. It'd make her hair sparkle.

Nobody knew her story. The doctors only knew she'd been brought from Khao Lak two days ago by helicopter from one of the hospitals after being found in one of the temples. She'd been mistaken for dead and had barely escaped burial when an observant monk had noticed her blinking her eyes briefly.

To Steve, it seemed like a miracle. However, the doctors had quickly warned him that she had a long way to go. Although her injuries had been stabilised for now, two of her more serious lacerations had been badly infected prior to arrival at the hospital and would further complicate her healing process. Needless to say, they were overjoyed she was now identified – it meant she could be sent to her home country for more extensive treatment. Steve had already been in touch with the embassy.

Seeing her like this, though, despite his relief, was heart-breaking. Apart from the nasty blue-purple bruises and superficial cuts covering her arms, legs, face and torso, Tessa sported several penetrating traumatic injuries and fractures, the two most serious being a deep gash alongside her right thigh and an open fracture in her left lower leg. Both injuries had received the proper emergency treatment as soon as she'd arrived in Bangkok, but the infection in her system was persistent and meant she'd most likely need additional surgeries to recover. Her broken ribs also put her at risk for developing pneumonia.

However, Steve didn't need to consider the worst case scenario. It'd already been on his mind before he'd found her. Now, he just wanted to focus on the fact that she was _alive._

After all he'd seen, he needed that.

He hadn't left the hospital since he'd arrived; hadn't slept much either. His only trip outside this room had been for phone calls and a visit to a public computer to send off a more detailed email to their friends and Tessa's family. The load he'd carried since he'd learned about the tsunami had lifted considerably, but it was still there as new worries, new threats, came to light.

The embassy had been in touch yesterday evening and promised to get Tessa off on the first available hospital flight back to Australia. Steve had yet to hear from them, though. Tootsie had explained to him that most of the Australian government's efforts had been directed towards Banda Aceh. Medical supplies and personnel, as well as 1,000,000 Australian Dollars had been raised to help the Banda Aceh area.

Steve didn't feel angered by the decision to prioritise another area – although it was tempting to vent off his frustration over this long wait – as he knew that a lot of European countries had sent their aid and money to help Thailand deal with the aftermath there. He'd met many Europeans – most of them Scandinavians – during his short stay here in Thailand, and had learned it was a well known holiday resort back in the Scandinavian countries. A lot of those tourists had lost their lives in this disaster, but Steve chose not to think too much of it right now.

He was already struggling to keep his composure as it was, which was made worse by his lack of sleep, lingering tension…and the realisation that now that he'd finally found her, he couldn't lose her. Although they'd been partners for a shorter time than him and old Barney Napps, it didn't seem to matter. She was his partner. She was special; Steve just didn't know why.

All he knew was that after four days of not knowing and fearing for her life, seeing her with her own eyes, as heart-breaking as her condition was, holding her warm hand in his…it made the fact that she'd survived the tidal wave real.

And somewhere, deep, deep into the core of his being, it made him dare to hope.

"Excuse me, Mr Hayden?" A voice spoke up behind him, breaking him out of his thoughts. Definitely Aussie accent.

Steve looked up and saw an official-looking man with short cropped hair and glasses. He seemed tense and impatient. Steve nodded.

The man gave a tight smile and reached his open hand. "I'm Mr Gorran from the Australian Embassy."

"Oh. Right" Feeling suddenly awkward at the change of tone, Steve gave the man a polite smile as he shook his hand firmly. "How'd you do?"

"Busy." Mr Gorran gave a wry grin, but it faltered as he looked around at the other patients lying around. They weren't better off than Tessa. "I can imagine you've been busy too." Steve only nodded to that statement. "Right. Well! I'm here to inform you that a hospital plane is scheduled to leave for Sydney later today, and as long as the doctors here give the green light, Ms Vance here will be on it."

The load on Steve's shoulders lightened just a notch.

"That's good news," Steve replied, feeling his exhaustion suddenly seeping into his muscles. He frowned slightly. "Did you come all the way here just to say that? I would've thought a phone call was enough."

Mr Gorran merely grimaced. "Yes, it would if it'd been only Ms Vance I was here to visit. Unfortunately, or should I say fortunately, I have more on my list." He started to rummage through his shoulder bag and soon gave Steve a wad of papers. "Make sure these are with her at all times. Temporary passport and all that official paperwork, you know. Transport will pick you up around 4 o'clock. Have you managed to book a flight for yourself?"

Honestly, Steve hadn't thought about it. He'd always imagined he'd be following Tessa on the flight back, whatever her condition. Mr Gorran seemed to draw the same conclusion.

"If you want, you can call the Embassy and see if they can arrange something for you. There are fortunately not too many Australians here in Thailand, so the pressure has lightened considerably, but I imagine they might still be very busy. Even so, they should manage to do something for you."

"Thank you," Steve said.

Mr Gorran exited with an abrupt nod, turning tense and harried-looking as he continued on his quest.

"Did you hear that?" Steve asked the silent woman beneath him, a tired smile crossing his lips. "I bet getting back to good ol' Aus will do you wonders."

The unconscious Tessa didn't reply, but Steve was content just to hold her limp hand, brushing a stray lock of hair away from her beaten-up, beautiful face, listening to her steady heartbeat on the monitor.

A few minutes later, he'd nodded off. Not for long, nor comfortably, but enough to keep him going for a little while longer. And when he woke up, she was still there.

Still alive.

* * *

Steve couldn't begin to describe the immense volume of gratitude he owed the Australian Embassy in Bangkok. Not only had they gotten him a spot on the hospital plane – although he'd played the sympathy card in order to do so – but they'd also managed to get his luggage sent up from the east coast to Bangkok International Airport in time for their departure. Steve had always made sure to pay the hotel day-by-day, so any financial issue had been settled, and therefore it'd only been a matter of having someone trustworthy pick up the luggage at the hotel and get it to the capitol.

He was now standing in the departure hall, shaking the hand of yet another embassy worker, who'd handed his bag to him just moments before. An airport attendant was waiting for him to finish so he could be shown to the hospital plane, which had a different entrance than the normal gates.

Steve thanked the embassy worker and followed the attendant through a maze of corridors and hallways until they wound up outside. A small golf car was called for, and it drove him across the large area outside the airport towards a hangar surrounded by ambulances and aid workers in brightly coloured vests.

Standard Aussie accents soon replaced the broken English spoken by the Thai that'd been helping them, and Steve boarded the airplane after a swift identification check with a federal agent having followed the plane to make sure only Australian citizens were coming on board.

With a wave of gratitude thudding inside, Steve watched the locals slowly disperse. Now that Tessa had finally been found, he found he'd been somewhat more relaxed and able to appreciate the work and effort the Thai people lay down in response to this event. It even made his eyes burn as he thought back to all those who'd helped _him_ , who'd helped _others_ , without question, without selfish intentions.

With all the hatred and violence in the world, with all he'd seen in his nine years at Homicide, he'd lost hope in those moments of humanity. And yet here they'd been: unabridged, raw, pure. In face of all that destruction.

The realisation overwhelmed him and Steve had to rub his eyes in an effort to regain control, his heart beating fast, his body suddenly trembling. Normally, he'd have been able to brush off this unusual loss of control and put on his mask again, but it seemed impossible in this situation. He'd changed too much; he realised that now.

"You okay here?"

Startled, Steve looked up at a woman with dark hair and compassionate eyes. The badge on her fleece jacket identified her as one of the doctors on board.

"Do you need any water or something to eat?"

"Um…" Ashamed, Steve rubbed the last remaining tears away from his face, then smiled up at her from where he sat beside Tessa's stretcher, already with a jacket covering his shorts-clad legs—it'd be cold once they reached 10,000 feet. "No thanks, I'm good. Will we be leaving soon?"

"Yes, in a few minutes. We're just making sure everything's okay before take-off. You don't mind a nurse sitting by you on the flight, do you?"

"Not at all," Steve smiled.

He knew the question was just to be polite and to ease his fears. It was standard operating procedure to have a nurse or doctor monitoring a patient during a flight; Tessa's injuries and previous surgical treatment made her a liability for additional complications because of the changes in altitude.

"Good."

The doctor returned the smile and then moved on to the next stretcher, asking the same question, donning the same sympathetic face to those other friends and relatives sitting by the stretchers.

Sitting there, holding Tessa's good hand, brushing his thumb slowly over hers, Steve suddenly wondered how it'd gone with Frankie and his cousin. Were they still at the hospital? Had they already gone home? What about the cousin's husband, had he been found?

It struck Steve that he hadn't been thinking too much of it earlier, but now he was going to have all the time in the world to contemplate what he'd seen and heard in the past 72 hours. It also made him wonder about Bridget. He still felt bad that he hadn't been looking for her. His head had been filled with his partner for the past five days; there hadn't been room for anyone else.

Steve had always known he wasn't the type of person who could give himself completely to the caring for others. Going into health care or volunteer work wasn't his thing. That's not to say he didn't care about people, it was simply that it mostly extended to his close friends and family. What happened to others...well, he was a sympathetic – sometimes empathetic – man, and the cases they worked often affected him, but there just wasn't room for a lot of people in his life. He had more than enough on his plate to go chasing down other people's problems as well.

If their roles had been reversed, however, he wondered what Tessa would've done. Would she have skipped her holiday – maybe even a holiday she'd been looking forward to – to search for him among a pile of rubble and dead bodies, not to mention the over-crowded hospitals?

For some reason, the thought made his chest tighten. What if she didn't think him important enough to go looking for him?

What if he'd pushed her away irrevocably?

 _Stop right there. You can't think about this now. It's pathetic, not to mention a waste of time. You can't assume you know what she'd have done. You can't even figure her out._

Which was entirely true. Three years and Tessa Vance was still as much of a mystery to him as she was in the beginning…only now, it didn't annoy him as much as it had two months ago. Maybe that's what people meant when shit happened that put things into perspective.

"All hands, prepare for take-off," the captain spoke over the speaker, sounding far away and croaky.

One of the nurses came over to him, introduced herself as Grace Kelly from St George's in Sydney, and settled down beside him to monitor Tessa as the plane started to taxi.

Steve looked out of the window, not too comfortable with this woman sitting so close and staring intently at his charge as if her being wounded was bad. He knew Tessa wasn't out of the woods yet, but she could've been dead, buried nameless and alone in some Thai temple far away from home. Whatever happened after they touched ground in Sydney, he preferred this alternative. At least she wasn't alone.

At least he was here, holding her hand.

The airport rolled past them, soon disappearing out of sight as the plane took a turn down the lane towards the end of the runway. Within minutes, Thailand was just a small dot beneath them, and Steve withdrew his gaze from the destruction he could see in the western parts to settle his eyes on Tessa's tanned, bruised and scratched features.

She was calm and didn't look troubled in her unconscious state; not like she'd done before she'd left for Thailand. It smelled from the saline-soaked gauzes that'd been put on her wounds against the infections, but Steve hardly sensed it; it paled in comparison to the sort of things he'd smelled in the ruins of Khao Lak. Her hand was limp in his, but he didn't care. Soon they'd be home and things would be all right.

He'd found the woman with the big smile. She was alive and that was all that mattered.

* * *

 **Sydney  
New South Wales, Australia**  
 _The Same Day_

Tootsie had known it'd be bad based on the details Steve had given her, but even all her mental preparation and previous medical experience hadn't quite prepared her for _this._

"Oh, Tessa…" Holding one hand in front of her mouth, Tootsie felt the tears well up in her eyes as she approached the hospital bed.

Multiple tubes and lines trailed from Tessa's veins and fingertips to the different machines and IV bags standing on either side of the headrest. An oxygen mask covered her nose and mouth, half-hiding some of the cuts and bruises on her face. Although she was breathing on her own, it sounded laboured, which was probably due to her broken ribs; Steve had catalogued all of Tessa's injuries in the e-mail he'd sent her yesterday.

Practically on automatic, Tootsie let her gaze sweep swiftly across the rest of Tessa's body, ticking off all of the injuries in turn. Her left hand was in a plastic cast, while her left leg had been fixed with an external stabilising frame until the infected wound had healed on its own. Tight bandages were wrapped around her head, her other arm, and the soles of her feet. Bruises and smaller cuts filled the rest of Tessa's visible skin, though looking fortunately clean and healing.

There was no hospital gown, just a bed sheet, meaning the nurses and doctors still needed easy access to the various injuries beneath. Reaching down, Tootsie picked up Tessa's unbroken arm and felt the hot, reddish skin and the rapid but steady pulse, recognising the signs of a fever. She could also pick up the faint smell of infection, and knew Tessa's immune system was fighting desperately to recover, and hopefully managing to avoid the onset of sepsis or pneumonia: two of the most likely systemic complications. There was also the danger of thrombosis.

However, of all her injuries, the compound fracture in her left leg was Tessa's most serious traumatic injury. They'd most likely have to do multiple surgeries in order to save her leg as they couldn't permanently fix the compound fracture until the infection was gone and the wound had healed on its own. Otherwise, she could develop compartment syndrome or gas gangrene, which in turn could lead to for instance amputation.

Exhaling deeply, Tootsie realised how knowing too much was also a curse. She blinked tears away from her eyes and put Tessa's arm down, looking across the bed to the man she'd momentarily forgotten.

"Think she's got a chance?" Steve sounded like he looked: exhausted, worn down, morose. Even though he slumped in the hard chair standing next to the bed, he was right on the edge of his seat, still wearing the same clothes he'd travelled in.

"The injuries in themselves are recoverable," Tootsie said heavily, touching Tessa's uninjured hand just to remind herself that she was _there_ , she was still alive. "It's the infection that's complicating things. Also, I would've liked it better if she was awake right now."

Steve chuckled slightly and rubbed his face tiredly. "All the other doctors have said the same thing."

Tootsie raised an eyebrow, not surprised by that fact. What _did_ surprise her, however, was how he seemed to relax a little more at her opinion; as if he hadn't quite wanted to believe it before he heard it from her. In spite of everything, it was heartening.

"Well, I hope I was able to ease your fears somewhat," Tootsie said gently, feeling a sense of calm descend on her. This was kind of her element, even if she dealt mostly with lost causes. "You look like you could use some sleep. Maybe some food and a hot shower too."

"That's a nice way of saying I look like shit." Steve grinned briefly, the touch of humour restoring some of his old self to the situation. Giving Tessa a worried look, he sighed, which turned into an involuntary yawn. "You're probably right."

Tootsie smiled. "I'll sit with her, Steve. Go home, get some sleep, freshen up. She'll be here when you get back."

 _You've done well,_ Tootsie added silently. _I'll take over from here._

* * *

There was something odd about the familiar smell of sawdust and paint that permeated his house. On the one hand, it was familiar, on the other…it felt wrong somehow. Steve couldn't quite explain it, and maybe there was no explanation. Maybe his sleep-deprived mind was playing a trick on him.

And so he simply followed Tootsie's advice. He ate, even though he wasn't very hungry, and he took a shower, even though his legs threatened to give out beneath him. Then, later as he stared at himself in the mirror, Steve could see what Tootsie had seen earlier. He _did_ look like shit. Nothing compared to Tessa, but still… It was the worst he'd seen himself in years.

Right now, he couldn't think clearly about that, though. He could feel the exhaustion too. It'd quickly made every action and reaction sluggish and poorly coordinated, causing him to stub his toe no less than four times since he'd arrived home in Arthur Street. The shower had cleared his head a little bit, but as he pulled away from the mirror and headed towards the bedroom, each step grew heavier and heavier until he more or less collapsed into bed.

Groaning, Steve slipped his feet under the covers and turned on his side – his preferred sleeping position. Compared to the high humidity heat of Thailand, his house was cool, sending shivers down his spine. He pulled the covers tightly around himself and exhaled deeply, willing his mind to follow the directions of his body.

However, despite the exhaustion, despite the slow, steady breaths and the jetlag, sleep didn't come easily. His head was too full of images, his nose too full of odours, and his skin too hot and clammy. And although he eventually drifted off to a fitful sleep, Steve woke up feeling even worse.

He'd dreamed…or had it been a nightmare? He wasn't certain. The remnants had disappeared faster than he could hold on to it, leaving behind only an encompassing sense of unease.

Suddenly panicked, Steve jerked up in bed and found his mobile phone, dialling Tootsie before he even noticed the time. Once he did, his eyes widened slightly. It was close to midnight. Somehow, he'd managed to get at least eight hours, even though it didn't feel like it.

" _Steve?"_ Tootsie sounded befuddled, her voice grimy, and for a moment his raw emotions took him down a darker path.

"Is she all right? Did the doctors say anything new?" His questions were fired off rapidly as he swung his feet out of bed, prepared to dress and leave immediately. "Are you still at the hospital?"

" _No, visiting hours end sooner in the ICU. I'm at home, but they've got my number. Fanny told them to contact me if there was anything. She's flying in tomorrow."_ Clearing her throat, Tootsie let out a yawn. _"Her fever was going down while I was there, but she's not awake yet. The doctors took some additional scans, though. No signs of infection spreading to the bone."_

"Oh." Steve didn't quite know what to say. "That's good. That's…" Slowly, he sat back down on the edge of the bed, hands clenched. After a beat, he reached up and rubbed his eyes. "She'll be all right?"

" _If the wounds heal and she wakes up…"_ Tootsie's tone was the kind of hushed quiet he'd started to get used to lately, and for all the wrong reasons. _"Hopefully, yes."_

"Okay."

Exhaling deeply, Steve looked around at his bedroom, almost expecting it to be his hotel room in Thailand. Then he caught sight of the shoulder bag he'd carried with him at all times and reached down to pick it up.

A bunch of photographs slid out and scattered all over his feet. In the scarce beam of light from his window, he saw Tessa's unblemished face smile up at him.

It was like a punch in the gut. Like that morning on Boxing Day, he felt the ground threaten to disappear beneath him and he forgot all about the phone in his hand.

Slowly, as if it would break, he leaned down and picked up the photo with his fingertips, holding it into the scarce light. It was the one from that day on the beach where they were sitting close in the sand, both grinning at some joke.

His throat constricted slightly and when he looked down at the floor, he saw her face everywhere. Different settings, different positions, but always grinning. Always full of life. Not like it'd been before she'd left. Not like it'd been every time he'd yelled at her, driving her to the edge, causing her to yell back, louder and louder until one or both of them stormed away.

Pain blossomed at the back of his throat, tightening the windpipe until his breaths were short, rapid gasps. Somewhere, Steve felt the phone fall from his hand as he covered his burning vision with his palm, the picture clenched tightly in the other.

And just like that, he fell apart.


	7. Chapter 7

**Sydney**  
 **New South Wales, Australia**  
 _New Year's Eve_

Tootsie scrambled out of bed once she realised it was the house phone that was making the awfully shrill whistle throughout the apartment. She ran into the living room in only her nightgown, desperately pushing the answer button, wide-awake.

"Soames," she replied breathlessly, running a hand through her messy curls.

" _She's awake."_ Steve sounded excited and Tootsie was easily influenced, breaking into a wide, relieved smile as she closed her eyes and let out a deep breath. _"About thirty minutes ago. Preliminary checks show no brain damage, but they'll do a CT scan just to make sure. Right now though, the doctors reckon she's got a very good shot at getting through this. It's unbelievable, all things considered."_

"Another pleasant surprise added to our list," Tootsie smiled, feeling the tears well up in her eyes.

Quite early this morning, the hospital had called to let her know Tessa's fever was gone and they'd scheduled an operation for later today to debride and irrigate her infected leg wound for the second time. After that, all they needed was time, antibiotics and natural healing before her leg was permanently set and the wound was finally closed.

"That's _great_ news, Steve. Thank you for telling me," Tootsie said, then hesitated, biting her lip. "So you're at the hospital already? Did you get any extra sleep last night?"

She knew _she_ hadn't, not immediately. Instead, she'd twisted and turned for hours, mulling over the things she'd overheard on the phone; things she was quite certain Steve would've liked to kept private. Which was why she'd quelled the urge to rush over to Arthur Street, even though it'd been hard.

Maybe if she'd been Tessa…

" _I got some shuteye earlier before the whole room turned upside-down and I was herded out,"_ Steve said, breaking her out of her troublesome thoughts. Tootsie was about to ask him more about Tessa, but he cut across her, _"Oh, the doctor's waving at me now. I've gotta go. Call Fanny for me? I'm not supposed to use the mobile in here."_

"Sure, I'll do that. Thank you, Steve. For calling," Tootsie said softly.

At least he sounded a bit like old self now. Maybe his breakdown yesterday had been good for him. Whatever the reason, she'd pay extra attention from now on. Just in case.

" _No problem. See you later."_

"Bye."

As she hung up, Tootsie exhaled somewhat shakily, her vision blurred for a moment. Around her, the living room was bright with daylight, telling her it might be time to get her lazy bottom out of bed. Rubbing her eyes free of any tears, she laid the phone down on the kitchen counter and wandered back towards the bedroom.

Lance had propped himself up on an elbow in the darkened bedroom, the soft glow of the nightstand lamp illuminating his grey hair and fine lines. The glimpse of a bare chest underneath the covers, here and there specked with fine grey and dark hairs, made her smirk slightly as she climbed back onto the comfy queen-sized bed and into Lance's strong, safe arms.

"Work?" He nuzzled her neck, but only for a moment; he'd never been the type for long, openly romantic gestures.

Tootsie hummed as she snuggled closer to him, feeling a breath of cool wind from the slightly ajar window. "No, it was Steve."

That perked her companion up and his arms tightened for a brief second before relaxing.

Tootsie continued, "Tessa's conscious. The first checks show no sign of brain damage. They'll probably do another scan later to confirm it."

"That's good news," Lance mumbled. "So why are you frowning?"

To underline his statement, he massaged her neck gently and she felt the tension fighting against his nimble fingers.

Tootsie sighed. "I'm happy she's awake, but...she's not out of the woods yet. This isn't going to be an easy recovery. There are so many things to consider, potential complications, invisible wounds… I'm just worried about her." She paused, biting her lip as she recalled last night's phone call once more. "About them both, actually."

"You know you cannot fix everything, Imogen."

She supposed that was the core of the problem. Although she was only dealing with people beyond the reach of medical recovery, Tootsie still had the same medical education as doctors and surgeons, and she was used to finding solutions to a problem. She knew the body was a work of wonders: it could get hurt, but it would recuperate. Cells were regenerated almost immediately after a tear had been made. It was a natural reaction and doctors exploited this.

However, the wounds of the body were one thing; Tootsie knew they'd heal eventually. While Tessa would have to go through physical therapy because of her broken bones, she _would_ get through it. She would get better. What worried Tootsie the most was the mental impact this would have on Tessa _and_ Steve, especially given all that'd happened between them before this traumatic experience.

Basically, she just hoped things didn't get any worse from here on out. They were her friends; it pained her to see _their_ pain.

"I know," Tootsie sighed, pushing the worrisome thoughts away from her mind. "I wish I could, though."

"Alas, we are but human," Lance mumbled and kissed her hair, hugging her closer.

He was right about that. Simple, complicated humans.

* * *

As the nurse passed him on her way out, Steve stood frozen in the doorway, unable to find any suitable words to break the silence that'd finally fallen over the hospital room.

One of the machines Tessa had been hooked up to was no longer needed, and had thus been turned off, making it considerably quieter. However, with her broken ribs, breathing was difficult and Tessa was thus hooked up to a nasal cannula, a pulse oximeter and a silent heartbeat monitor wired to another monitor at the nurse's station.

The steady beat should have calmed him, but the laboured breathing was palpable. It scared him.

In all the years they'd been partners, in all her moments of weakness, Tessa had never seemed _this_ vulnerable. For someone who liked to have a measure of control over her environment, she was at the absolute mercy of everything and everyone around her – and she didn't even have the usual strength to challenge it.

Steve hated it. Had hated it when he'd first seen her in Bangkok International Hospital, too, but at the time the heartbreaking realisation had been overwhelmed by the immense relief he'd felt in finding her alive. Now, two days later, he'd had time to think about it. Maybe _too_ much time.

"You coming in or out?"

The tired voice would've been barely audible in otherwise normal environments, but here it broke through his thoughts with a vicious snap.

Tessa's beautiful blue eyes were barely open, but they were directed at him in a rare moment of clarity. Normally, people coming out of a coma were confused and stubborn. According to the doctors, who hadn't allowed him to come in until nearly an hour after she'd woken up, she'd been very disoriented earlier and had needed a mild sedative to calm down. They'd warned him she might have a different attitude than he was used to, but Steve didn't mind.

Apparently, she'd asked for him once she'd learned he was there.

Steve let a smile break across his face and felt the tension as he did so. It almost hurt, but soon dissipated. "I'm coming in. Just give me a sec to see whether I should bring the chocolate or not."

She half smiled; exhausted, but still offering him this small comfort. The chocolate had been a running joke after her numerous hospital visits. At least it seemed like she remembered that.

Feeling very self-aware, Steve walked into the room and paused beside the bed, half reaching for her hand automatically before wondering if it was appropriate now that she was awake. However, it only took a heartbeat before his hand fell onto hers, and when she didn't throw him off he let it curl slightly around her fingers.

"How're you feeling?" Voice gentle, he was tempted to brush a stray lock of hair away from her face. It was dangling near her eyes, obstructing his view of the clear blue irises that'd only two weeks ago looked at him in such fury as he'd never seen.

"Beat up," Tessa mumbled, half-closing her eyes. "Confused. Are we really in Sydney? It doesn't...it doesn't feel like it."

She looked so incredibly helpless, like a porcelain doll teetering on an edge, waiting for a gust of wind to fall over and break. Steve struggled to keep his head cool.

"We're in Sydney, St George's Hospital," Steve confirmed, finally giving in to temptation and brushing the offensive hair away. He rested his hand on her head before suddenly pulling away, slowly; feeling every muscle in his shoulders and neck tense like taut wire.

Whatever went through Tessa's mind, Steve didn't know as he laid his hand next to hers on the bed, white-knuckled and half fisted. But her droopy eyes were simmering with something and he struggled for a second to keep his face calm.

The moment didn't last long, though, as Tessa withdrew her eyes. "What day is it?"

Steve was glad for the diversion. "New Year's Eve. It's just past nine in the morning."

"Have you been here long?" She sounded hesitant as she looked seemingly everywhere but at him, taking in her surroundings with both perplexed and familiar observation.

He'd been in the waiting room since three, but he wasn't sure she needed to know that.

"I've been here awhile," Steve said quietly as he surveyed Tessa's features in scrutiny. Underneath that illusion of clarity, she still seemed very confused. His heart went out to her. "Are you tired? Do you want something?"

"No... I'm not sure. It's all just a blur..." Her eyes fluttered shut and for a moment he thought she'd nodded off again before they opened and looked at him, watery blue and shaking with emotion. She was breathing heavily, struggling with her broken ribs. "I don't remember anything, Steve. This is so confusing. Where's Bridget? What happened to me?"

Never before had Steve felt such a loaded question weigh heavily on his mind.

He shifted his stare to the lithe hand fisting the covers in distress and gripped it once more, trying to convey a comfort he wasn't sure he felt at the moment. There'd been no news of Bridget so far and Steve feared the worst; the longer people stayed missing, the greater the chance that they'd lost their lives in the disaster.

"It'll come to you," Steve whispered in the end, brushing her silky curls behind her ear, noting how tears welled up in her frightened eyes. "You don't need to push it, Tess. Just focus on getting better." He forced a smile onto his taut features. "Maybe you should get some rest."

Tessa's eyes were already drooping as she leaned into the palm stroking her hair, trapping it between her and the pillow. It made his heart constrict. Somewhere out there, people were still looking for their loved ones.

Not him. Not anymore.

"Get some sleep and I'll be here when you wake up," Steve said, wondering if she could hear the sudden tremble in his voice and hoping she didn't. It made him feel exposed.

"Promise?" Her voice small, Tessa peered up at him through half-closed eyelids like a child; Steve struggled to keep his breaths even.

"Yeah… I promise."

They were the heaviest, softest and most honest words he'd ever spoken.

* * *

When she arrived at the hospital a couple of hours after Steve's phone call, Tootsie greeted the staff sitting at the nurse's station with a familiar nod and smile. She didn't pause for an update, however, instead taking the shortest and quickest route to Tessa's room.

Steve was still here, she noticed as she halted silently in the doorway, but she held back the automatic greeting as she took in the scene.

Perched unmoving on the edge of the bed, Steve was leaning slightly towards Tessa's sleeping form, holding her good hand gently in his. He seemed trapped in his own world, just staring down at his partner without really seeing her.

Had it been anyone else, she would've immediately called it a loving gesture, but Steve and Tessa's relationship was one she'd never truly understood or could begin to understand fully. They were working partners, yes, but they'd always seemed to be something more. Not romantically, nor simply friendship, just _more._

However, she had to admit that their unusual fighting and behaviour over the past two months had made her wonder if _more_ wasn't rapidly turning into _less_.

Well, it seemed she could stop wondering. At least about that.

She hated to interrupt, but she had little time before she was to leave for the airport where she'd agreed to pick up Fanny, and so Tootsie selfishly cleared her throat to gain attention.

Unexpectedly, Steve didn't jump off the bed as a deer caught in the headlights, instead cocking his head and meeting her eyes above his broad shoulder as if he had nothing to hide.

"Good morning," Tootsie smiled, finally stepping across the threshold and walking to the other side of the bed. Steve didn't lose the grip on Tessa's hand. "How is she?"

"She's been sleeping since nine." He looked at his wrist watch. "Uh, two hours plus. Nurse said they'd come by later to wake her up so they could prep her for surgery."

Tootsie couldn't help the knowing smirk spreading across her face, but brushed it off quickly as she reached out and unnecessarily pushed Tessa's curls away from her face. "How long was she awake?"

"Couple of minutes at first, then about ten minutes less than an hour later," Steve replied. He frowned, trying to keep a yawn from breaking the silence behind his spare hand.

"And have you slept since?" asked Tootsie, eyebrow cocked in concern.

"No," he admitted with a sheepish grin, flashing his dimples at her briefly before returning his stare to Tessa's peaceful features. "She's so calm now. She was very confused and distressed when she woke up. Panicked about not getting enough air. Didn't remember what'd happened."

"Not surprising." Tootsie looked down at the fair-haired woman, guessing the potential tales behind her injuries. "I wouldn't be surprised if her memories didn't return to her until later. There's no finite medical encyclopaedia on concussions; it's a doctor's greatest mystery."

"She asked for Bridget."

A pang in her chest made Tootsie falter slightly, and she met Steve's darkened eyes, regaining her composure. "Her brother is searching for her. He said he'd call once he had news."

Steve frowned, his voice filled with something Tootsie couldn't identify. "When did he go up there?"

"Um... I think he went the day after you," Tootsie replied uncertainly. "I didn't think to ask him..."

Steve looked lost in thought, even a bit ashamed for some reason, but she felt she couldn't ask him about it. Besides the fact she'd never been his confidant, she wasn't sure she'd understand what he'd gone through or be able to help him sufficiently to cope with his experiences. She felt quite certain, though, that it wouldn't only be Tessa who'd need someone to talk to: someone who could give him the tools he needed to move forward once things got tough.

"Steve..." Tootsie wasn't sure where to start and half wanted to back down when he met her eyes inquiringly. "Have you...talked to someone? About what you experienced?"

Steve's eyes darkened and he withdrew them slowly, focussing on the hand in his grasp. She could see his knuckles whiten slightly and felt bitterly warranted in her inquiry.

"I think you should. Sometime. You know, when things get..." She drifted off apprehensively, not quite sure which words to use.

"I know," Steve mumbled after a moment, not looking up. "Thanks, for caring." He half smiled.

Tootsie gave a tentative one in return.

Steve exhaled softly. "Right now, though... she needs me. And I guess I'm not quite ready yet."

"Well… All in due time," Tootsie said as gently as she could. Feeling the tension sweep across the room, however, she shifted on her feet and let out a breath, pasting a bright smile on her face. "Well! I need to be off for the airport. Fanny's plane is landing in an hour. Call me if there's any change, will you?"

"That's a given now, isn't it?" Steve smiled softly.

"You can never be to sure," Tootsie said, winking at him, feeling encouraged by his familiar smile. "Get some sleep too, all right? You don't want to nod off when she's awake, do you?"

Steve chuckled lightly. "I suppose not."

Tootsie only grinned, brushing across Tessa's bruised cheek softly, before retracing her steps back into the corridor, halting outside the see-through window to see Steve sitting in the exact same position as she'd found him in. Only now, he didn't look troubled: he was smiling gently.

It relieved her.

* * *

Tessa looked a lot like her mother, though Steve wasn't sure she'd appreciate hearing that; women could be offended by such comparisons, and Tessa's relationship with her mother hadn't always been the best.

But you wouldn't think that by looking at them. As soon as she'd arrived, Fanny had breezed into the ICU room with an air of belonging and Tessa, who'd been awake right then, had broken into tears immediately when she'd spotted her, seeking her comfort like any other child who'd loved her parent.

Steve wondered if she'd ever need him like that.

"We're just in time, it seems." Coming up next to him, Tootsie smiled and looked at her wristwatch. "Or has the procedure been postponed?"

"No, it's still on," Steve said, letting the familiar talk of facts take his mind off those other things. This wasn't the time for them. "The doctor had a look at the wounds earlier. Apparently, the infection's still aggressive. They'll most likely have to debride more than they'd expected."

"Have the results from the cultures come back yet?"

"Yeah. He said something about a polymicrobial infection?" Steve wasn't quite as well-versed in the medical lingo. "You can probably ask for the details yourself. All I picked up really was that they'll try some other types of antibiotics now that they know more about the source of the infection."

"Good," Tootsie said, nodding in approval. She seemed to be in her element with this kind of talk. "Knowing who your enemy is, that's alpha and omega."

Well, _that_ was at least an idiom Steve could understand, only he wasn't capable of fighting the enemy Tessa faced. All he could do was stand on the sidelines and be there for her…if she wanted him to.

And right now, with her mother here, it didn't look like he was needed. As the doctors and nurses came to wheel her away, her hand remained firmly clenched in her mother's, who followed her upstairs to the operating theatre.

Tessa never once cast her eyes in his direction.


	8. Chapter 8

**Sydney**  
 **New South Wales, Australia**  
 _New Year's Eve_

Time passed so quickly now. It hadn't earlier in the week, when the despair of not knowing and the endless waiting had done a number on him. But since he'd found her, everything had sped along as if on a never-ending motorway. Once one event was over, another started, and in the rare interim where nothing happened, Steve found himself frequently lost in thought. As if he wasn't really present; as if things weren't quite real just yet.

Or maybe it was simply that he'd yet to fully catch up mentally to the present.

At times, it felt as if he wasn't truly back on solid ground yet. Wasn't a particular setting or situation – the sensation had crept up to him both in moments of solitude and company. Right now, it'd caught up while he was sitting in the visitor lounge with Fanny, Guy, Tootsie, Fisk and Dee as Tessa was getting a debridement.

The others were chatting quietly amongst themselves, polite phrases and questions exchanged with equally polite interest and only broken a few times by deeper sentiments when Fanny's emotions got the better of her. Steve didn't think any less of her. He was just Tessa's partner and had only been forced to wait for two days before he'd managed to leave and _do_ something. Fanny, Tessa's _mother_ , had waited nearly a week.

Steve exhaled heavily and leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees. He looked at his hands, clean and tan, and half expected to see dirt under his fingernails. Somehow, they didn't feel a part of him right now, and he had to remind himself that his feet _were_ solidly planted on the ground.

"Hey, anyone want some coffee?" That was Dee, who'd suddenly stood up and now fidgeted slightly as she looked around at all of them, eventually landing on him. "Steve?"

"Sure," he said and rose to his feet.

He walked ahead as Dee confirmed with the others on how many cups to bring, then sped up to join him. Neither of them spoke at first, Steve still lost in thought, Dee presumably wondering what to say; she'd never been the touchy-feely type either.

It reminded him of their last day at work together, and Steve sighed guiltily. As they reached the coffee machine and she became busy finding enough coins in her pockets, he broke the silence.

"Hey, Dee?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry I snapped at you before the holidays." Steve put his hands in his pockets, not quite meeting her eyes.

"Oh." Dee gaped at him slightly, then shifted uneasily on her feet. "No worries, mate. I'd already forgotten about it."

It was clear from her expression that she hadn't, but Steve appreciated the gesture. Before he could say anything else, though, his mobile phone rang. He picked it up and saw Melissa's number on the screen. It occurred to him that he hadn't talked to his folks yet besides some curt messages at various junctures to let them know he was all right.

"Gotta take this," Steve told Dee, who just shrugged and busied herself with the coffee machine. Taking several steps away from her down the corridor, he pressed the answer button. "Hey Missy."

" _Hey…"_ Melissa's voice was quiet and worried at the same time. Given his mental state before he'd gone back to Sydney, he wasn't surprised. " _You busy?"_

Steve looked around the corridor for a relatively quiet corner and found it after some searching. "Not right now. Tessa's in surgery. We're just hanging around the waiting room."

" _Is it serious?"_

He didn't quite know the answer to that. To him, everything seemed serious right now. "They're cleaning an infected wound. Shouldn't take long. She's awake, though."

" _Right."_ Melissa paused, clearly not knowing what to say, which seemed odd for her. She was the most talkative of the Hayden siblings. _"So…how're you holding up?"_

That was the question, wasn't it? Steve felt like a juxtaposition. There were so many different emotions, he was surprised he hadn't exploded from the pressure yet.

"I'm all right," he said in the end, not quite sure of the fact. "How 'bout you guys? All prepped for New Year's?"

It was a diversion, but fortunately Melissa didn't call him out on it as she chuckled and began to share the tales of what their parents and her kids had been up to the past few days. Steve managed a smile as the scenes she described filled his mind, grateful for the reminder that elsewhere, things were still normal.

He just wished he could say the same.

* * *

"The procedure went well. We were able to cleanse the wound and irrigate it, though we had to remove more soft tissue than expected. Another MRI showed that the infection has managed to stay out of her bone, which are grounds for optimism."

"So it means she'll be all right?" Caressing Tessa's sleepy face, Fanny looked up at the doctor with the sort of hopeful eyes that made Steve's gut lurch slightly.

The doctor paused. Not for long, but enough that Steve caught it and shifted uneasily on his feet, fists clenching. He turned to the window, needing something else to watch than the woman lying unconscious in bed once more, surrounded by her doctors and loved ones in a half-circle that he wasn't part of right now.

"It means that she's got a better chance at recovery, yes," the doctor continued. "Now that we know which bacteria are causing the infection, we can attack it more efficiently and hopefully avoid any further spread. It helps that your daughter is young and strong, Mrs Simmons."

Meaning Tessa needed to be a fighter now, Steve reasoned. Only, she'd already fought so hard to get to this point. How long could her body hold on? How long could she continue fighting before it became too much for her system to handle and her body would start shutting down?

"We'll continue to monitor her closely," the doctor said in that tone that was supposed to inspire both confidence, trust and hope. "The next twenty-four hours will be crucial. But if her condition improves, we'll soon be able to move her to a high dependency unit. In the meantime, do you have a place to stay?"

"Yes." Fanny's eyes were teary and she had to swallow to regain control. Behind her, Guy reached out to grasp her shoulder in support. "We've booked accommodations for visitors here at the hospital."

"Good." The doctor nodded and clearly prepared to leave. "We will keep you updated outside visiting hours."

Fanny smiled slightly. "Thank you, doctor."

Steve watched the doctor leave with a heavy feeling in his chest, then turned back to the bed where Guy was now hugging Fanny tightly. For some reason, the picture didn't sit well with him. He started to get nauseous.

"So?" Tootsie appeared in the doorway, not having been allowed into the room due to the ICU's protocols on how many people could be present at the same time after a surgical procedure. "What did he say?"

She looked to him for answers, but Steve found himself unable to give it. Hands in his pockets, he only stared at Tessa, whose features looked swollen and pale compared to earlier.

* * *

As the clock neared midnight, Steve had found a quiet corner somewhere in the hospital, and was leaning on a windowsill staring at the glowing city outside.

Watching the fireworks in person instead of on the box had always been on Steve's to-do list since moving to Sydney, even if he was on duty. He made sure to get his partner along for the ride, whoever it was at the time, and it'd always created a good atmosphere ringing in the New Year. The last two times, he'd taken Tessa for a drink after work in a very crowded pub, and exchanged tales and comfortable company that normally stayed out of their daily interactions. He'd liked that.

New Year's Eve was a magical thing – Steve had known this since he grew up; his mother always made such a fuss about it. New chances, new wishes for a better year. Although he was inclined to a more cynical and realistic view on the future after nearly nine years in Homicide, he still felt attracted to the happy mood of the general crowd.

This year was very different, though. The fireworks were sent up in honour of all those lives that'd been lost in the tsunami, as well as the lives of those affected otherwise by the event. Instead of being close to the harbour and watch the colours reflect in the water, Steve was cooped up in a hospital. And lastly, his partner of three years wasn't at his side but rather in the ICU, fighting against an infection that could claim her leg…or her life.

The smell, the sights and the company were all so wrong according to the unofficial tradition and it only reminded him of a different location. A place where he might still be detained, where Bridget Murphy's brother was still searching for his sister, and where he until recently had watched some of the worst scenes in his life yet.

He could still remember the endless lists, the grimy polaroid pictures, the young boy whose hand he'd held, the motionless body bags, the devastated ruins, the green forests, and the overpowering smell of decay and sewage.

He could still remember the long, heavy walk through crowded corridors to the room where maybe, _maybe_ , he'd find the person he'd lost and come to find.

 _So far and yet so close_.

Steve began to wonder what was going on up in South East Asia at the moment. They still had a few hours left until midnight, but would they shoot up fireworks? Unlikely. According to the news, things had changed greatly in the past few days, but there was also no improvement. Deaths were more common than survivor stories on the news. And there was little reported from Thailand as the government was focussing mostly on the Banda Aceh area.

Life and bloom versus the death and destruction he'd seen. The contrast was nearly as bad as comparing the eastern and western parts of Thailand.

Steve turned abruptly from the window, gritting his teeth in annoyance over his own weak mind. He didn't have time for this now. Tessa was in there fighting for her life, and he was out here wallowing in his own self pity.

She didn't deserve that. She didn't deserve any of it. Not after all she'd been through…not after what _he'd_ put her through.

Ever since that art gallery murder a couple of months ago, he'd been so angry with her and had barely been able to stand her presence at times. She'd noticed, of course. She always did. And day by day, Steve had seen how it'd been wearing her down, stretching her thin, and pushing her to an even more extreme obsession with solving their cases…until finally, she'd snapped.

It was his fault that she'd gone to Thailand on holiday. His fault that she'd nearly died. And his fault that she was in there alone in the ICU, still fighting for her life days after the tidal wave. If he hadn't been such a coward and just told her how he felt, maybe they wouldn't have fought and she wouldn't have gone overseas. Maybe they'd be down at the harbour by now, watching the fireworks and having a great time, instead of being cooped up in this damn mess…

He knew now that _that's_ why he'd gone to find her. That's why he'd insisted it was _him_ that had to do it, not someone else, not Tootsie, and that he had to go _alone_. He'd needed to make amends.

Only now, Steve had realised how he also needed to tell Tessa the truth behind his anger and frustration: That the distance that'd been created between them this past year was killing him. That it was because he loved her, was _in love_ with her, and that it'd taken the devastating shock of learning she might be dead or dying for him to realise as much.

Despite all his previous rage, all their past fights, Steve hadn't been prepared to lose her; hadn't known what he'd do without her.

And now here he was, cursing himself and his shortcomings, criticising his right to hope that she'd pull through so that maybe… _maybe…_ he'd get a second chance.

Steve's hands fisted as the hollow feeling in his chest grew heavier, more numbing. There was no longer any possibility in stopping the memories or the guilt that accompanied them, and he was pushed even more into the dark recesses of his mind when he spotted a television through a transparent wall showing the fireworks down by the harbour. The Opera House was highlighted beneath the colourful sparks.

Steve pulled his eyes away from the vision with a deep churning in his stomach.

Nothing was going to be the same for them now. Only time would tell.

He just hoped she'd live.

* * *

Everything was dark. Thick and sludgy, like wading through a strong current and mud at the same time, struggling.

It felt difficult to breathe. Something was stuck in her nose, in her lungs, holding her down. Tessa tried to move, tried to use her hand to get rid of whatever it was, but her body wouldn't comply. It was so heavy.

Gasping hollowly, she opened her eyes, didn't quite understand where she was or who was leaning over her, talking to her. Her body still wouldn't move, still felt trapped in place, and distantly she could feel everything hurt. All over. She blinked her eyes rapidly, her vision blurred, still struggling.

For a moment, all she saw was water and she panicked. Her feet wanted to pedal, her arms wanted to pull herself up, but there was nothing she could do. The current pushed her, punched her, swallowed her, spat her back up again. Tessa gasped for air, desperate to get out, to hold on to something, to keep her head above water.

She knew that if she didn't fight, she'd disappear. Be swallowed up whole. Die.

Then, from somewhere, the current suddenly eased down. She felt numb, felt air begin to trickle into her lungs, and her eyes blinked away the blurriness to reveal a room. Not water. No struggle.

A shadow leaned over her again. It was talking. Slowly, the words solidified and she recognised her name being called.

"Tessa? Are you with us?" The shadow leaned into a stream of light and Tessa saw a face, but she didn't recognise it, even as their eyes connected and the face broke into a smile. "Good, Tessa. Good. You're all right. You're at the hospital. Do you remember that?"

Hospital? Tessa closed her eyes, confusion permeating every layer of her being. The water had seemed so real, as had the darkness. She'd struggled. It'd felt like ages.

Someone slapped her lightly on the cheek.

"Tessa? Stay with us," the voice said.

Tessa opened her eyes, the details of the room clearer now, yet still blurred in places. She could see it was a hospital room and that a nurse and a doctor was leaning over her. The doctor was the one speaking to her.

"You've been in an accident," the doctor said, glancing at something above Tessa's head. She could hear beating sounds. "But you're safe now. You're at St. George's in Sydney."

The name resonated in Tessa's mind, but she didn't know why. It was like she'd heard it before, but in a different voice, a deeper one. Head fuzzy, Tessa looked down at her right hand, expecting some kind of pressure there, like a hand. A big hand.

There was none.

"Ugh…" Her throat felt sore, her body heavy, and Tessa struggled against the fog of confusion that stopped her from finishing her question. "Where's…?"

"Your mother?" the doctor asked gently.

No, it wasn't that. Tessa frowned and looked at her hand again, curling her fingers as if expecting resistance.

"She's in the hospital's visitor accommodations. You want us to call her?" the doctor asked, but Tessa shook her head, feeling that if she just opened her mouth, whatever was stuck on the tip of her tongue would get out.

"Steve."

Yes, that felt right. His face appeared in the fog, smiling at her from next to the hospital bed, and she looked to see if he was actually there. He wasn't and it felt difficult to breathe again.

"Tessa," the doctor said immediately, voice tense. "You must try to remain calm. We've already given you a sedative; try to let it do its job."

She didn't hear him. It hurt in her chest: a hollow, ugly pain that felt all too familiar. Someone had been lost. Someone had left her. Someone with red hair, bright smile, shiny sunglasses.

 _Bridget. Where's Bridget? Where's—?_

Tessa hyperventilated again, gasping for air, and felt as if the waves were going to wash her away again.

Distantly, she noted that the doctor and the nurse conversed and bustled about, but all of that faded eventually as the darkness overcame her once more.

When she came to, the room was dark, but a thin stream of light emerged somewhere and fell on a dark silhouette that shifted slightly into the light. After blinking her eyes a few times, Tessa realised Steve's face was next to her bed. Smiling. She felt a heavy weight on her hand and looked down. His hand was on hers, grounding her. Like an anchor.

"You're here," she rasped, her throat dry and sore.

"Said I would, didn't I?" Steve squeezed her hand, his voice gentle and hushed in a way that resonated deeply within her; a voice she distantly recalled as being reserved for quiet moments like this, when it was just the two of them and no work, no constraints. Like phone calls in the night.

It felt like ages since she'd heard him speak like that again. She soaked it up like a sponge, smiling weakly. "You did?"

Already, she could feel her body calling her to sleep again. The pull was difficult to resist; she felt so comfortable, so _safe_. Somehow, she knew the water couldn't drag her under anymore. Couldn't touch her.

"Yeah." Steve's smile was soft and she felt something brush across her knuckles. A thumb, maybe. It was warm and gentle, lulling her further to sleep.

"Oh." Barely able to keep her eyes open, Tessa met his warm eyes and turned her hand to squeeze his back with whatever strength she could muster. It seemed to brighten his face considerably. "Okay."

"You'll be all right, Tess." Half whispering, Steve reached up to cup her face with his other hand, brushing hair away from her forehead. "You'll get through this. Just keep fighting." He smiled again, the last image she saw before her eyes closed. "I won't go anywhere."

And he didn't.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Epilogue to follow. Just have to finish writing it first. _


	9. Epilogue

**EPILOGUE**

* * *

 **Khao Lak**  
 **Phang Nga, Thailand  
** _Ten years later_

Standing on the veranda outside the bungalow, Tessa stared out at the vast expanse of blue water flickering in the sun.

Even after all these years, all her visits, she could still see the wave appear on the horizon. She could still feel her horror and disbelief as realisation set in. Could still hear herself yelling to Bridget to get up, to get away, and turning to lock eyes with her wide ones just as the water crashed through the seemingly paper-thin walls.

It was difficult to forget, but she'd learned how to keep moving forward in spite of that. Not that it'd been easy. In the beginning, just the sound of water, of other people's screams, had been enough to paralyse her. However, Tessa didn't like to remember those moments; they always reminded her of how broken she'd been and how broken she could get. She didn't want that again.

She wanted to _live._

Not just stay alive, not just be a victim, but to take charge of her life and stop getting caught up in things she'd realised weren't that important anymore. Like obsessing over a case to the detriment of her own physical and mental health, as well as her relationships with others. Like not seizing opportunities when they came, or not taking chances to change things for the better just because she was scared of the consequences.

Although there were still moments where Tessa once more felt helpless, isolated and weak, the tsunami had made her stronger. She'd been through hell and back, and learned that she could get through anything so long as she accepted what was, what had been and what could be.

Like her therapist said, everything she'd felt in the aftermath of the disaster, everything she'd experienced, was absolutely normal. There was comfort in that. It told her it was okay to move forward even if she hadn't processed all of her trauma and grief yet…even if she still felt guilty she was alive when Bridget and a lot of other people weren't.

Tessa exhaled heavily, familiar tears burning in her eyes.

 _She would've wanted you to have this,_ her mind reminded her. _She would've been happy to see you smile and laugh; to be happy. If your roles had been reversed, you would've wanted the same. So get out there. Don't be a coward._

Outside the bungalow, the beach was alive with people – old, young, couples, friends and families. Brushing away the wetness on her cheeks, Tessa picked up her shopping net and walked down the steps to the hot sand and a couple of sun loungers standing in the shade of a large beach parasol.

" _Finally_ ," Steve said overdramatically as he caught sight of her, swinging his feet off the lounger and sliding his sunglasses up to rest on top of his head. "We're dying of dehydration here, you know."

"Thought you were used to hot weather like this, growing up on a farm." Tessa teased easily as she handed him the shopping net and watched him pull out the water bottles she'd bought. "Where's Liam?"

Steve cocked his head to the water's edge where a six-year-old boy was digging in the sand with a couple of other children. "Socialising. Kid's better at it than us. He'll be speaking one of those Scandinavian languages before long." He broke the seal on the water bottle and drank several gulps before looking at her, squinting slightly because of the sharply lit surroundings. "Maddie asleep?"

"Yeah." Sitting down on the spare sun lounger, Tessa reached into the bag she'd left behind earlier and pulled out the baby monitor, turning it on. "Nodded off before I could put her down." She gave him a playful wink. "Sounds _almost_ like someone else I know."

Steve rolled his eyes, slightly exasperated. "That old thing again… I said I was sorry. I was knackered! So would you be if you'd been bricking walls all day."

"I know, I know. I'm just teasing you." Wringing off her knee-length tunic, Tessa noticed how Steve's eyes still, after so many years, managed to automatically survey her body and darken appreciatively. She enjoyed that; the old scars and stretch marks made her self-conscious at times. "We'd both agreed that's how we wanted to spend our anniversary: helping out. I wasn't much better off." She held out the sunscreen lotion she'd dug out of her bag. "Help me with my back?"

"Sure."

Rising to his feet, Steve sat down behind her and got the sunscreen lotion in hand. It was cool and smooth on her hot skin, which felt nice after her earlier walk to the local shop for water and fruit. Steve's hands on her skin felt nice too, and given their topic of conversation, she grinned as she recollected how they'd spent the succeeding night after their anniversary.

"You made up for it, remember?" Tessa said, noticing how her voice had turned so easily husky by his touch and presence alone. "Night after?"

Steve chuckled and leaned forward to kiss her behind the ear, sending shivers down her spine. "How could I forget? We most likely got a kid out of it."

Turning her head, Tessa met his grin with one of hers. "Think he'd freak out if we ever told him that?"

"Oh yeah." Steve squeezed out some more sunscreen lotion and pulled her bikini straps aside so he could reach every part of her skin. The action tickled pleasantly. "I know _I_ did. Couldn't look at my parents the same way again."

"Lift, was it?"

Steve paused, an amazed expression on his face as their eyes met. " _How_ do you remember things like that?"

Tessa chuckled and shrugged. "Juicy enough news, I guess."

Simply shaking his head, Steve finished rubbing the last of the lotion onto her back and then handed her the plastic bottle. "I'll go get Liam. Been awhile since he put some on."

"All right. Thanks."

Tessa took the bottle and continued to rub lotion onto the rest of her skin as Steve put on his sunglasses and left the shade for the brilliant sun, his tan skin glistening. Watching him head off down the beach and sit down to interact with their son and the other kids, she found herself smiling again.

The man looked younger in his 40s than he'd ever done in his 30s. Even with the beginnings of silver in his hair and a slight roundness all around, he moved with the grace and ease of someone who, in spite of continued late nights and occasionally little sleep, had found his place in life.

Parenthood suited him. Surprisingly, it suited her too.

If anyone had told her ten years ago that she'd one day be married to her former Homicide partner, have two kids and a house in the suburbs, Tessa would have laughed them in the face. Especially given how much they'd yelled at each other and butted heads in the months leading up to the tsunami, as well as the year after.

However, that event and its aftermath had bonded them in a way that their years in Homicide hadn't been able to do. Like it was yesterday, Tessa could still remember the long hours he'd spent next to her in the ICU. Could still remember him being there for her during rehab, therapy, _everything_ , and she in turn being there for him when he finally revealed how the experience had shaped him, changed him, in ways neither of them had expected.

It hadn't always been easy, but then again nothing was, was it? They'd each had their time spent in the darkness, in despair and in grief, struggling with guilt and and questions of _why_. They'd each sought professional help to get the tools they needed to get through this; not just on their own, but together as well.

What had finally brought them together after much blood, sweat and toil, though, was this place. Neither had been able to let go of what they'd seen, of what they'd felt, and they'd eventually come back here many times in order to make sense of it all. And while here, as they remembered the destruction and the help they'd received from the Thai people, they'd decided they wanted to give something back. For Steve, it'd meant helping with the rebuilding and constructing houses for people to live in through one of the local charities. For Tessa, it'd meant helping out at the local hospital at first, then one of the orphanages set up by a British charity founded by fellow survivors.

Year after year as this place changed, they'd changed along with it, and bad memories had eventually been replaced by happier ones. Awkward, pleasant and flirty dates in restaurants, and moonlit walks on the beach. Hiking in the mountains and adventure. Playing with the children in the orphanage. Party with the local community in their newly built houses. Sending hundreds of lanterns up into the night sky and watch them drift serenely out over the ocean. Marriage proposal after watching the New Year's Eve fireworks. Liam's happy squeals in the gentle waves. Maddie's carefree bashing of her brother's sand castle.

As Tessa remembered it all, a teary smile filled her face and she thought of Bridget again. She'd have loved this. Underneath that witty façade had been someone who'd longed for the same closeness that Tessa had finally found, and she'd have rolled her eyes at her for even thinking their roles should've been reversed.

" _You got to hold on to what you've got, Tessa,"_ Bridget had told her on the night before the tsunami, in a rare moment of solemnity. _"We only get so many chances in life, so don't give up, whatever happens."_ She'd smiled at her then and poked Tessa in the ribs. _"When you get home, you tell him how you really feel. I mean, what's the worst thing that could happen?"_

 _That he doesn't love me,_ Tessa had thought at the time, but she hadn't voiced it. Too scared to bring it into existence in case it turned out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. If she'd have to answer the question today, however, her mind was clear: _That I'd die without getting a chance to tell him._

But she hadn't, and as Tessa watched Steve laugh and roughhouse with Liam on their way back to the sun loungers, she felt a wave of gratitude and warmth to whoever, or whatever, had kept her safe, kept her _alive_ , that day. They'd given her a family. They'd given her hope.

And for that, she smiled widely and held her arms out to hug Liam tightly.

* * *

"Mu-um."

Steve snorted as Liam let out a heartfelt groan, unsuccessful in his attempts to wriggle out of Tessa's hug. The six-year-old was in a phase where he didn't have time for this kind of stuff, not when there were other kids around and the chance of playing. Tessa loved it, though, and Steve could see her mischievous twinkle before she started to smooch Liam all over his face and tickle his ribs at the same time.

" _Mum!_ Stop it!" Giggling in spite of himself, Liam bent this way and that, trying desperately to escape his mother's grip.

With a final kiss to his forehead, Tessa loosened her hug and pulled him onto her lap with a grin. "You having fun with Greta and Aslak, Liam?"

"Yeah," Liam drawled as Steve stooped down and found the bottle of sunscreen lotion. He could sense that Tessa needed the closeness Liam brought her, and thus sat down next to them to apply the lotion himself.

Tessa gave him a grateful smile before turning back to Liam. "Yeah? You been building sandcastles again?"

"No. Race tracks." Liam stretched his neck to look down to the water's edge where the other children still remained, hunched over something in the sand. "We found some fish."

"Ooh," Tessa made an appreciative sound, shifting Liam slightly so Steve could finish his task more easily. They'd found that distracting the boy made it easier to do things like this; otherwise he'd be up and jumping by now, too restless to sit still. "So you'll have a fish race. I see. Did you pick a good fish?"

Steve snorted. _Ever the competitive._

"Think so," Liam said pensively as Steve indicated for Tessa to let him up, then finished applying the lotion to the back of his legs and back. As predicted, it didn't take long before Liam was full of jitters. "Can I go now?"

"You need to drink some water first." Leaning down, Tessa picked up a sealed water bottle and uncapped it for him. "You hungry?"

"No." Liam shook his head furiously in between sips. Once done, he thrust the bottle back at Tessa and then took off before any of them could say another word.

Watching him go, Tessa let out a sigh and took a large gulp of water herself before putting the cap back on. Steve smirked at her and nudged her gently with his shoulder.

"Reminds me of someone else I know," he teased, and laughed when she rolled her eyes. "Which is comforting, I guess, because then I know he's gonna slow down _eventually_."

Tessa raised an eyebrow at him. "Oh yeah? You think I'm slow?"

Oh, he knew that look. Steve raised his palms immediately, edging away from her as Tessa's face split in a dangerous grin. Too late, though. Moments later, she'd pushed him off the sun lounger and sat laughing while sand flew everywhere.

"Oh, you _didn't_ ," Steve said and let his hand shoot out to grab hers, pulling her on top of him with a yelp. Given how she'd recently put on lotion, sand stuck to her like a second skin, the sight of which caused him to laugh out loud as she struggled to get back on her feet.

She was laughing too, though, and sat back to brush sand unsuccessfully off her body, only causing it to spread everywhere else that'd yet to be covered. Steve had to admit, he enjoyed the sight far too much for a family-friendly setting. He'd have to store it in his memory for some other time.

"Great." Wiping her face with the back of her hands, Tessa sighed overdramatically. "I'll have to take a swim now."

"Here."

Steve helped her get to her feet, noticing how a few looks were being sent their way. Not that he really cared; his therapist had said to be open with how he felt and not lock stuff away, and he wasn't embarrassed by this, either. He and Tessa had danced around each other for years. It felt good to act like this instead. It made him feel like that young man he'd once been, when he'd just been mucking about in the paddocks and streams without a care to all the brutality and bitterness beyond his little part of the world. After all those years in Homicide spent growing increasingly cynical and weary, Steve needed that.

Giving Tessa a once-over, eyes familiarly taking in white scars from ten years back, Steve chuckled and guiltily tried to rub off some of the sand. "You look like a golem."

"Ha ha," Tessa said, punching him lightly in the arm before he caught it and kissed her fingertips instead. That caused her expression to soften considerably and she smiled gently, lowering her voice intimately. "Check on Maddie while I'm gone? Maybe cut up some fruit?"

"Yes, dear." Steve grinned and snuck a sand-filled kiss before Tessa put on her sunglasses and left for the cool waters near where Liam was playing.

He watched her go, smirking appreciatively as he often did when she dived into the waves, then made sure there weren't any valuables left alone before heading towards the bungalow. Despite the jokes Tessa made of his tolerance to heat, Steve appreciated the cooler, fresher air inside compared to the humid, oppressive heat outside. It felt nice after being out in the sun for the past four hours or so, especially with the ocean breeze coming in through the open windows.

Steve lingered by the window for a moment to look back, spotting Liam and the other children where they'd been practically all day, and then noticed Tessa getting out of the water. A smile crossed his lips as he saw her walk comfortably up to Liam and lean down to say something before heading back to the sun loungers, smiling at people that greeted her.

It made him happy to see her like that: at ease, comfortable in her skin, keeping her head up. It hadn't always been that way. Over the years, he'd seen her terrified of oceans and horizons, even swimming pools, to the point where she'd completely shut down and retreated into herself. These days, there were still times when he could feel her tense up if for instance a wave crashed against the sand unexpectedly.

Like for other survivors, Steve knew Tessa's battle wasn't over. Didn't matter if it was two, ten or twenty-five years; a trauma didn't adhere to logic. It penetrated deeply, made a home for itself, and resurfaced whenever it was given an opening.

What had surprised him, however, was how his own scars had remained as an ever-fixed mark upon his mind all these years. Although this holiday paradise had found its way back to its former glory, a process which had helped both of them heal significantly, Steve couldn't help the images or smells that still set off his memories at times.

He'd learned it didn't make him weak, though. It was okay to feel that way, to remember those things, because suppressing them was a sure-fire way in the opposite direction of healing.

Still, everything had its limits and Steve had come to the realisation that he much preferred the present and the future over the past. There was so much potential there: a fact that'd given him hope, something he'd thought irrevocably lost to bitterness, frustration and the demands of his work.

One such hope was lying in the master bedroom, clutching her pacifier in her sleep. Steve smiled when he saw her. Maddie had just turned two before Christmas and was growing up so quickly he wondered where all that time had gone. Only yesterday, he'd held her little frame in his arms at the hospital, wondering if it was possible to feel anything _more_ than in that moment.

As the last two years had taught him, however, it was entirely possible. There was patience…annoyance…bargaining…pride…frustration…relief…love… Having kids had certainly broadened his range of emotions tremendously, if not exactly in the directions he'd initially expected.

 _You're in the deep of it now, Steve-o. Point of no return._

Grinning, Steve closed the door behind him with a gentle motion and found his way back to the bungalow's kitchen, feeling the fresh air fill him up from the toes to his fingertips.

It was exhilarating.

* * *

All around them, the beach was crowded with people, foreigners and locals alike. The speeches and the music had passed and all that remained in the air was the soft-spoken words as people mingled and bent over their paper lanterns. Far up above them, the moonlit sky was clear and sprinkled with stars, bringing back memories of playful discussions and arguments on how there weren't more stars in the country…

Holding a sleepy Maddie close to his chest, Steve enjoyed this moment. In front of him, Tessa and Liam were kneeling in the sand, talking lowly amongst themselves, laughing occasionally, connecting like only the two of them could do. They were like two peas in a pod, those two; equally enraptured and frustrated by each other depending on the situation. Their most common trait seemed to be how they could forget the world around them completely and stay fully in that moment of eternity. At times, Steve envied that.

Even so…this was _his_ family. He never tired of that thought or of the feelings that accompanied it. There'd been a time he'd lost all hope in something like this happening to him, but here it was. The proof was right in front of his eyes – and in his arms – and it made him smile.

 _I wouldn't want to be anywhere else._

"All right, I think we're ready." Tessa's voice drew him out of his reverie, her smile reeling him in as easily as ever. Next to her, Liam rose to his feet, ready with the lighter as she held up the lantern.

"Hey Maddie, look," Steve crooned lightly, nudging the sleepy two-year-old so she'd turn her head on his shoulder and watch her big brother light the lantern. "Look at that."

Maddie shifted slightly in his arms, raising her head tiredly – still a little too young to stay awake at this hour – and he saw her eyes widen slightly in wonder at the sight, and his smile widened.

There was something magical about the whole thing; the hushed atmosphere, the hundreds of lanterns rising into the air, joining together silently above the dark, moonlit ocean. As their lantern lit and expanded with hot air, Steve watched Maddie's amazement almost as much as he watched Liam's excitement when the boy directed the lantern upwards into the air to join the others.

Then he noticed Tessa's tear-filled eyes above her smile, and he felt a familiar pang twist his insides, causing him to pull her close to his side in a one-armed hug, kissing her forehead.

Ten years and it was still a battle. She was still a survivor and he was still marked by his experiences. But they were both _here,_ in the now, in the present, and they had the future ahead of them. Nothing was better for a fighting spirit than that.

"Love you," Steve mumbled lowly against her skin.

Tessa sniffled gently, resting her head on his shoulder, and drew her arm around his waist, hugging him closely in return, grounding him familiarly. "Love you too."

Pulling back slightly, the two of them shared a smile and a kiss in the yellow light of the hundreds of lanterns, then let their eyes drift to follow their single lantern up into the sky where it soared ever higher…

…lifting them – their past, their present, their future; all their fears, all their hopes – with it.

* * *

 **THE END**


End file.
